High Noon theatre review: Billy Crudup brings charisma to bonkers real-time Western

HIGH NOON. Billy Crudup (Will Kane) - (Johan Persson)

London theatre never ceases to surprise and this boggling staging of the classic 1952 Gary Cooper western is a case in point. Like Fred Zinnemann’s film, Eric Roth’s adaptation unfolds in tension-stoking real time, as Marshall Will Kane – autumnally married and set to retire – waits for vengeful outlaw Frank Miller to arrive on the noon train in Hadleyville, New Mexico, to kill him. It’s entertaining and well executed but frankly bonkers.

Billy Crudup asserts a wholesome charisma as the upright, heroic lawman but he’s a Chatty Cathy compared to the taciturn Gary Cooper in the original. Denise Gough brings extra layers of regret and sorrow to Kane’s bride Amy, played on screen by the much younger Grace Kelly. Awkwardly, she’s required to declare Amy’s Quaker, pacifist beliefs roughly every ten minutes.