Monty Python's Spamalot

There was something reassuring about planning a trip to see Spamalot. Even before going, you pretty much know the entire story, the characters and the jokes. It is either going to be a straight rehash of the 1975 film, or a hybrid of the film and an assortment of the Python's best-loved sketches. Either way, it is going to be as comforting (or excruciating) as watching another Monty Python rerun. Except it's not. Spamalot is much more than a collection of in-jokes for the Python aficionado to enjoy. It is a superb tribute to the Pythons themselves and to the farce and pretentiousness of modern musical theatre. It has been playing at the Palace Theatre, ...  Read the complete review

Several years ago, I went to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company show "The Complete Works". For a couple of hours, I sat there doing very little other than laugh. Even once the point where it began to hurt to laugh was passed, I couldn't help myself. Years later and jokes from the show occur to me at strange moments and still make me laugh. In the time since, I have searched in vain for something that funny, so I can once more experience the sheer unbridled joy of laughing until it hurts and then laughing some more. With "Spamalot", the fun starts before you even get there. Knowing that it's a Monty Python musical, at least for the ...  Read the complete review

I had a ticket to what I thought was the first West End performance of Monty Python's Spamalot. However, while I was in London, I saw a couple of posters advertising performances from 30th of September, two days earlier. Either way, I saw one of the earliest UK performances of this musical. It advertises itself as 'a new musical lovingly ripped off from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. Certainly, if you've seen the movie, you'll see some stuff you recognise, but there's a lot to the show that wasn't in the film. There are also some jokes pilfered from other Python creations, such as the fish slapping dance, a reference to the dead parrot sketch and ...  Read the complete review

I went to see the musical with my parents at the Palace Theatre on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue while on holiday in London a few weeks ago, this is what its about and what I thought of it. Spamalot is the musical version of the popular Monty Python movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a movie that my dad actually appeared in briefly as an extra, playing a peasant in the 'burn the witch' scene. I'll say right off that I found it a disappointment that the musical didn't include this song or scene, since I would have pointed it out to my dad if it was included but oh well. This is definitely not a 'to be taken seriously' musical at all, its a ...  Read the complete review

I have just got back from a weekend in London where I was fortunate enough to see Spamalot, which opened in 2006 at the Palace Theatre in the West End, and will run there until January 2009 when it begins a tour of the country. Spamalot has been so successful that it is also running on Broadway and in Las Vegas, as well as having had a sold-out stint in Chicago. The musical is "lovingly ripped off" as they put it from the film 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. A lot of it is really very similar and in fact some whole scenes of the stage version are worded exactly as they are in the film. Since June 2008 the part of King Arthur has been ...  Read the complete review