High Noon Reviews: Billy Crudup & Denise Gough in a divisive frontier standoff

"Billy Crudup brings classic Hollywood western back with a bang"

"Crudup and Denise Gough lead a tense adaptation that turns the film into a debate play whose McCarthy-era roots resonate powerfully today"

"... it’s an odd experience initially as Thea Sharrock’s production switches from one brief filmic scene to the next, and the endeavour seems as wooden as the clapboard saloon-bar slats that comprise the handsome set."

"As a piece of theatre, it finds its flow. As a debate play, though, it gathers a locomotive energy"

"Eric Roth’s script uses many lines from Foreman’s screenplay but fleshes out the debates on the ethical stance of a community"

"Gough makes her part grittier and more modern than that of her film counterpart, Grace Kelly. The pair are convincing as a couple although their narrow characterisation hems in the full scale of their abilities."

"It seems like a reluctant musical at times, the songs short and thin but the percussive music and sound design are always arresting"

"For all its early stiffness, it builds in momentum and there are moving moments. Ultimately, the political message speaks loudest, harnessing the McCarthyist fear of then and the Trumpian terror of today."

"Billy Crudup breathes new life into the western"

"The Morning Show star is persuasive in the role immortalised by Gary Cooper in the 1952 film, but did it really need to be remade for the stage"

"Crudup, star of TV’s The Morning Show, delivers a more ambivalent version of an unassuming man who is trying to do his duty... his performance adding heft to the debut play from the Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump)."

"In the end, though, Roth doesn’t quite persuade you that this is a story that needs to be remade."

"With its burst of line-dancing, the early scene depicting Will’s marriage to his Quaker love Amy (played by the demure Grace Kelly in the film) has all the makings of a reboot of Oklahoma!"

"Denise Gough brings a much more assertive edge to a devout widow who will not compromise on her religious beliefs... Rosa Salazar impresses, too"

"... the lines that Roth has added about morality and confronting rule-breakers take on new force at the start of a year when the world seems to be in meltdown."

"A thoughtful Western with vital moments missing"

"Stage adaptation of the classic 1952 movie tells the story of a sheriff whose town turns its back on him"

"The 20th century’s great movie Westerns have given us so many enjoyably kitschy tropes... All those elements are technically present in director Thea Sharrock’s thoughtful staging of the 1952 movie High Noon, but they’re painted in muted colours, rather than nostalgic Technicolor. "

"Here, Billy Crudup lends a quiet integrity to the role of sheriff Marshall Kane"

"The script here is the work of venerable screenwriter Eric Roth (Killers of the Flower Moon, Forrest Gump), and his best moments sing. As Amy, Gough beautifully punctures Kane’s obsession with his gun"

"Sharrock’s production relies on the current theatrical vernacular for depicting mid-century America: rough timber, golden light, abundant haze."

"This production tells its story carefully, but it still feels a little slow, a little crowded, a little uncertain of what it is. It feels like some vital moments are missing from Roth’s adaptation"

"This staging feels like a fitting tribute to him, and a conjuring of the paranoid times he worked in. But it doesn’t deliver either the adrenaline or the emotional punch that gives Western movies their enduring power."

"Billy Crudup brings charisma to bonkers real-time Western"

"This adaptation of the classic Gary Cooper Western takes big risks but has propulsive storytelling"

"London theatre never ceases to surprise and this boggling staging of the classic 1952 Gary Cooper western is a case in point."

"It’s entertaining and well executed but frankly bonkers."

"Billy Crudup asserts a wholesome charisma as the upright, heroic lawman... Denise Gough brings extra layers of regret and sorrow to Kane’s bride Amy"

"I’m not sure why veteran screenwriter Roth, who won an Oscar for Forrest Gump, thought the world needed this onstage horse opera, here and now. Nor why he and director Thea Sharrock stud the action with snatches of songs by Bruce Springsteen and others, plus occasional bits of square dancing."

"I presume this risky messaging is one of the reasons the show is premiering here: that and the fact that a failure in London is less cripplingly expensive than in New York."

"The uncomplicated moral force and propulsive linear storytelling are refreshing, the acting unsubtle but powerful, and the more absurd moments truly hilarious"

"... American screen star Rosa Salazar oozes sardonic, Hispanic disdain as Helen."

"Gough is as compulsively watchable and emotionally present as ever."

"Despite terrific turns from Denise Gough and Billy Crudup, this stage adaptation of the classic Western feels like more of a curiosity than a convincing play"

"Putting a film western on stage is an odd idea that doesn’t seem any less odd having seen High Noon"

"It’s an impressive show in a lot of ways. Thea Sharrock’s direction deftly conjures a dusty desert town... It’s theatrical, too, in the sense that the cast sing a lot more Bruce Springsteen songs than they did in the film, and an ever-present clock implacably ticks down to the title time. "

" I wasn’t really a massive fan of Billy Crudup’s recent one-man show Harry Clarke. But he’s the best thing about High Noon"

"His new bride is tough, independent-minded Quaker Amy Fowler, played by the mighty Denise Gough, who imbues the character with an almost fanatical opposition to violence, and also sings Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’ exquisitely."

"Both leads are formidable, charismatic presences who make the roles their own and fairly comprehensively do a different thing to Cooper and Kelly. But is this story really a play?"

"... it still cleaves close to the structure of the film and that just doesn’t quite cut it on the stage. Magnetic as Crudup is, and solid as the gunplay bits are, none of it can negate the fact that the story ends weirdly abruptly – it needs a much longer final act."

"It’s entertaining, looks great, has a superb cast and Bruce Springsteen songs.... But it still feels a lot like a screenplay plonked on a stage. High Noon the film is an all time classic. High Noon the play is an entertaining curio.

"Billy Crudup and Denise Gough in a suitably wild Western"

"Roth, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Forrest Gump, constantly plays up the contemporary significance as his Marshall Kane (played with a grave charisma and grace by Billy Crudup)"

"Like the film, Thea Sharrock’s tightly wrought production unfolds in real time over just under two hours, with a large clock at the centre of the stage ticking down to the denouement."

"Gough, such an intelligent actress, doesn’t have quite enough to do with Amy... though she sings beautifully in the contemporary songs by Bruce Springsteen and others that punctuate the scenes."

"Crudup, deprived of Gary Cooper’s pensive close-ups, needs one great speech to outline his position. He keeps saying he must do what he must do, but the moral thrust of the film is somehow missing."

"Sharrock’s direction is thoughtful and taut while encompassing dancing (choreography by Lizzie Gee) and some realistic fights courtesy of Kate Waters."

"There are terrific supporting performances too, from Rosa Salazar as Helen... and from the disaffected deputy Harvey, played by Billy Howle"

"The rest is careful and elegantly enjoyable, but lacks that emotional punch."

"This adaptation of High Noon could never rival the classic film"

"Even Denise Gough and Billy Crudup couldn’t save this production, which lacks all the necessary tension"

"It’s an intriguing idea for a night out... Alas, though: Billy Crudup and Denise Gough can’t match Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly on screen, and Thea Sharrock’s stylish and yet grit-free production stokes only fitful tension."

"You can see, besides the commercial logic, why those involved identified a theatrical rationale for an adaptation. With its Aristotelian unities of action, time and place, the original screenplay by Carl Foreman has the taut quality of a Greek tragedy."

"All kinds of approaches could have been taken here – a modish slant, with camera-work and mics, or a folkish ensemble enactment. Sharrock and co have gone for something picturesque but pedestrian"

"The compactness allows for fleet switches of location – a bar-room, church-hall, stables. But it doesn’t elicit the atmosphere and claustrophobia achieved on screen"

"Nor do the performances quite match up to the film. A capable and charismatic American actor, Crudup cuts a frailer, more wavering figure than Cooper – his authority is not a done-deal."

"... the big gun-slinging denouement, albeit rushed in the film, here lacks the requisite adrenal quality – less high noon, more morning elevenses. Not a total misfire, then, but it doesn’t hit the mark – better to re-watch the film."

"The original High Noon was spectacular - this retelling certainly isn't that"

"I don't often say this, but save your money and don't watch this below par rehash of a classic "

"High Noon (quadruple Oscar winner in 1952) is an outstanding film that more than merits an hour and a half of anyone’s (re)watching time. It’s a western unlike any other: mean, moody, moralistic and magnificent. On stage, in this new adaptation by Oscar winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), High Noon is resolutely none of these things."

"Crudup has none of the stature nor demeanour of Cooper"

"There are inescapable echoes of America’s current political turmoil in Roth’s script, with its theme of confronting the big, bad bullies, as well as men’s perennial recourse to violence."

"Thea Sharrock’s production... has little sense of a ratcheting up of tension as the clock ticks down"

"As for Cooper’s iconic, acerbic final gesture, one of celluloid’s most memorable moments, there’s none of that here. Much as I hate to say it, save your money and watch the film instead."

"Woefully little tension"

"Denise Gough and Billy Crudup struggle to enliven this stiff Western"

"... why take a movie classic – 1952’s High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly – and transplant it to the stage? And why now? These are questions that nag, and are never satisfactorily answered, throughout this adaptation"

"... stiffly staged by Thea Sharrock and luxuriously cast, yet unevenly acted. That the action, such as it is, plays out in real time, marked by a clock that hangs over Tim Hatley’s design throughout, only makes the lack of purpose and impetus more glaring."

"... Rosa Salazar as Helen Ramirez, a sexpot Mexican saloon owner with a colourful romantic past, camps it up gamely, pouting and smouldering into the middle distance."

"As the hands on that clock finally approach 12, what you’re chiefly left thinking is, what a waste of talent – and what a waste of time."

"Can Billy Crudup rival Gary Cooper in this remake of High Noon?"

"The classic 1952 western receives a new stage adaptation, with an 80-year-old Hollywood screenwriter making his debut"

"It was the question of redundancy that was bothering me. Yes, before rolling into town to see Billy Crudup and Denise Gough strut their world-class stuff in place of Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, I’d been wondering if there was any point trying to reinvent this great 1952 western on stage. What was to be gained?"

"I can say that Gough absolutely seizes the role of Amy"

"... Crudup — a handsome yet shapeshifting Hollywood star whom I’m forever failing to recognise in everything he excels in... brings a compellingly grizzled, ruminative quality to that marshal, Will Kane. He looks a bit like Mark Rylance here yet makes his own non-macho mark on the role. He’s tremendous."

"Yet this world premiere tries on too many theatrical forms for size to find its own identity."

"So Thea Sharrock’s production is a bit of this and a bit of that. Individually, not bad at all. Collectively, tepid."

"High Noon – far from the wild west"

"Thea Sharrock’s tame staging of the 1952 cowboy classic takes on Trump, but lacks the suspense and urgency of the movie"

"Though the film is not action-packed, it is suspense-driven. Sharrock’s production is engaging rather than exciting. A big clock hangs over the stage, ticking out the plot in real time, but the pace is leisurely"

"Wildness and vastness are missing."

"Billy Crudup is a convincing marshal: more open, less invulnerable, more 21st century than Cooper; slippy-eyed, moving deliberately, he does not coast on cragginess. Denise Gough bursts out of the part of the Quaker wife, which Roth has built up, though not to the point of suggesting that it was as important for her as for her husband to stick to her – well – guns."

"Billy Howle – who raged impressively two years ago in Look Back in Anger – is outstanding as another impotently furious young man"