Billy Crudup leads Springsteen-scored High Noon musical at Harold Pinter theatre

Billy Crudup stars as marshal Will Kane in a West End musical adaptation of the 1952 film High Noon at the Harold Pinter theatre, London. Thea Sharrock’s production adds Bruce Springsteen songs, line dancing and a handsome set of clapboard saloon‑bar slats, but initially feels odd as it switches from one brief filmic scene to the next and can seem as wooden as its set.

As a piece of theatre it finds its flow, and as a debate play it gathers a locomotive energy as it travels towards the showdown between Frank Miller (James Doherty) and Kane. The show leans into the film’s original allegory of McCarthyism—the screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted—and Eric Roth’s script uses many lines from Foreman’s screenplay while expanding debates about a community’s ethical stance.

The production is frequently read as speaking to contemporary dilemmas in the United States, with the reviewer noting parallels to “the cowboy country of Trump’s America” and citing “the shooting in Minneapolis” as an example. Crudup and Denise Gough, who plays Amy Fowler, are central: Crudup holds up the role while Gough brings a grittier, more modern edge and is a strong singer.

Several other characters are described as too flimsy, though Roth gives more voice to the women and the affinity between Amy and Rosa Salazar’s Helen is refreshing.

Key Topics

Culture, Billy Crudup, High Noon, Harold Pinter Theatre, Bruce Springsteen, Denise Gough