NEAR MISS

In a new stage adaptation of 1952 movie ‘High Noon’, Billy Crudup stars in a thoughtful western that nonetheless lacks a little of the bite the original delivered, says Alice Saville

- Alice Saville

The 20th century’s great movie westerns have given us so many enjoyably kitschy tropes: swaggering cowboys, tough sheriffs with shiny badges, ruffle-skirted saloon girls, and quick-draw gun battles. 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. This story doesn't romanticise the Old West; instead, it punctures its mythos, acting as a sobering critique of gun-slinging masculinity and the McCarthy-era cowardice that surrounded the original film. Here, Billy Crudup lends a quiet integrity to the role of sheriff Marshall Kane, who finds his town turns its back on him, while an impassioned Denise Gough throws his values into question as his pacifist new wife, Amy.