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Our 2025 family Christmas Present was tickets to see the stage show High Noon. It’s one of Jon’s favourite films and he was intrigued to see how this would translate onto the stage. We’d watched the DVD the night before so Callum would know the storyline.
We headed into London and headed over to Liverpool Street Station. Christmas decorations were still up, but some places were starting to take things down ready for the mass return to work on Monday.
We were hoping we could get a table at The Breakfast Club. Alas, the queue was out the door so started to retrace our steps. The Woodins Shade pub was at the end of the road, so we popped in. We were only people inside so were wondering if breakfast would be any good, but no need to worry.
Photo: The Arrival
A memorial to the Kindertransport, commemorating the 10,000 Jewish children who fled Nazi persecution and arrived at the station between 1938-1939
With breakfast behind us, we headed to Westminster Tube Station. The plan was to start the Westminster Treasure Trail and see how far we got, with the plan to finish on a future trip to London.
The start was by the St Stephen’s Tavern and the first stretch of the trail was down Whitehall. There were several clues to solve along here taking you past The Centaph, The Women of World War 2 memorial, Horseguards and various statues.
At the end of Whitehall is Trafalgar Square – and the Christmas Tree was still up. We were in at the end of November and the Christmas Tree was missing!
From Trafalgar Square, we headed off down The Mall – the road that takes you to Buckingham Palace. Admirality Arch is under renovation and under wraps at the moment. Whatever work they are doing is taking forever.
We past the Captain James Cook Statue and then veered off to the right to Waterloo Place, passing the Duke of York column. Not the current “former” Duke of York, but Prince Frederick, the second son of King George III.
The trail took us around various streets and squares, searching for clues. We got just over half way through before we broke off to head to the theatre.
High Noon was on stage at The Harold Pinter Theatre. What looked small from the outside was like a tardis on the inside. Stalls plus 3 levels of balconies.
We had tickets at the back of the Royal Circle (the middle balcony). The leg room was non-existent. Jon was fine, but Callum and I struggled. From the way the seats were laid out, I couldn’t even stick my legs into the aisle.
In the end, Callum and I decided to stand (standing area right behind our seats) and watch the show from here.
Like the film, the stage production was set in real time with a large clock hanging front and centre of the stage.
Jon was a little disappointed that the iconic song “don’t forsake me oh my darling” was consigned to a few chords of the guitar played at points on the stage show. Instead, Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” was the song of choice for the adaptation.
Image shared from https://highnoontheplay.com/
It was very well done – although can’t replace the original film with Gary Cooper & Grace Kelly.
It was bitterly cold when we headed out the theatre. Barely 4pm and the Christmas Lights were starting to shine brightly.
Before heading home, we wanted a bite to eat. We were going to catch the tube back to Paddington from Charing Cross, so we were trying to find somewhere on the way back to Trafalgar Square. Most places looked full or rather posh for us!
In the end, we decided to head to Thai Square near the Canadian Embassy off Trafalgar Square. It was busy but thankfully they did have room for us.
We knew what we wanted to order – mixed starters, two mains, a Pad Thai and a rice.
Luckily we had to cross Trafalgar Square to get back to Charing Cross – the lights on the Christmas Tree and the Christmas Stalls looked really pretty and made Trafalgar Square a little more magical.
