Outside Context

“Spamalot!”

“Spamalot!”

“Spamalot!”

“It’s only a stage show.”

“Shhh. Knights, I bid you wel­come to the West End! Let us ride to… Spamalot!”

I was only say­ing to the wife on Monday morn­ing, as we nego­ti­ated the tube and indus­tri­ously ignored the crowds who could hear every word in 5.1, that I would like to go do the new West End show; Spamalot.

It was as if fate itself traveled on the Cent­ral Line. Why? Because, I walked into work and the Oper­a­tions Man­ager came out of his office with two free tick­ets for tonights per­form­ance and would any­one like them?

YES!

But, what is it? I hear you all cry. Luck­ily, Wiki­pe­dia comes to the res­cue (sav­ing my digits this early in the morning):

Monty Python’s Spamalot is a comedic musical “lov­ingly ripped off from” the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Like the film, it is a highly irrev­er­ent par­ody of Arthur­ian Legend, but it dif­fers from the film in many other ways, espe­cially its par­od­ies of Broad­way theatre. Eric Idle, a mem­ber of the Monty Python team, wrote the musical’s book and lyr­ics, and col­lab­or­ated with John Du Prez on the music. Run­ning since March 17, 2005, it was dir­ec­ted by Mike Nich­ols, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical of the 2004–2005 season.

Spamalot’s plot fol­lows King Arthur as he jour­neys to find the Holy Grail. Arthur, trav­el­ing with his ser­vant Patsy, recruits sev­eral knights to accom­pany him on his quest, includ­ing Sir Bedevere, Sir Robin, Sir Lancelot and Sir Gala­had. Along the way, they meet the Lady of the Lake and a host of other odd char­ac­ters, includ­ing Prince Her­bert, The French Taunter, Tim the Enchanter, Not Dead Fred, the Black Knight and the Knights who say Ni.

I won’t ruin too many of the fine jokes here, as whilst much is old Python mater­ial — rous­ing a cheer whenever a famil­iar line comes along — the format is played with quite effect­ively. Spamalot is a par­ody of a stage show. All the non-Python musical num­bers (I.E. Most of them) relent­lessly take the piss out of Theatre Cul­ture (worthy of a caps!?) and the West End style shows in par­tic­u­lar. Many songs break the forth wall includ­ing “The Song That Goes Like This”:

Once in every show
There comes a song like this
It starts off soft and low
And ends up with a kiss
Oh where is the song
That goes like this?
Where is it? Where? Where?

and “Whatever happened to my part?”:

What ever happened to my part?
It was excit­ing at the start.
Now we’re halfway through Act 2
And I’ve had noth­ing yet to do.

as well as the hil­ari­ous “You Won’t Suc­ceed On Broadway”

In any great adven­ture,
that you don’t want to lose,
vic­tory depends upon the people that you choose.
So, listen, Arthur darling, closely to this news:
We won’t suc­ceed on Broad­way,
If you don’t have any Jews.

Yes, indeed the whole audi­ence gasped when that line was sung. It goes on, and gets fun­nier, and the Oper­a­tions Man­ager and I have since said that my work (which is Jew­ish) must go to this show ASAP!

The only miss­ing scenes are the “Bridge of Doom” and the attack on castle Arrrrgg (my favor­ite bit — “That’s a dan­ger­ous weapon!”) everything else is in and per­formed with great style. The stage sets are amaz­ing and spe­cial effects are everywhere.

Tim Curry is excel­lent, if a little stiff in the dan­cing. The rest of the team are very good indeed and dance all over the place.

How­ever, I would say that for the obsess­ive Python fan, who I would class as someone who not only knows the words but also the inflec­tion of tone used by the ori­ginal mem­bers, that this show does take a liberty with the source mater­ial. Tim­ings are dif­fer­ent and you will yearn for the Python voices and cast read­ings. Moreover, this is not just a sketch show on stage and some pas­sages and parts are largely expan­ded. For example, the “Den­nis” scene is dove­tailed into a large sec­tion about Den­nis becom­ing Sir Galahad.

All this worry goes to noth­ing and everything is right with the world when they sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” I am sure that you will sing along with every­one else, who­ever you are. Only John Lennon’s “Ima­gine” is a song with more hope in it.

So, fun for every­one. My wife (who pro­fesses a hate for Python) loved it every bit as much as I did and that is the highest praise I can give it.

Rat­ing of 8 out of 10 and very funny.

Basho