Spamalot is fantastic. Really, really, fantastic. In my opinion, that’s all that needs to be said, but I don’t think that would go down too well with the editors. This Tony Award-winning musical is feisty, riotous, and completely flipping mental. If you’ve got an unsated desire to see a catapulted cow, rude Frenchmen, and dancing, fish-toting Fins, then this is the musical for you. If you’re a boring, lifeless misery with no zeal for the wondrously eclectic pleasures of life, give it a miss. And get some help.
The scheduling of the show feels particularly appropriate. Just as the last remnants of the pantomime season can be seen gentle fluttering away in the post-epiphany wind, Spamalot lands with a satisfying ‘thunk’ in its place. It really does have an awful lot in common with its festive counterpart. The set is a brightly coloured affair, resembling a cardboard cut-out that has been slotted together in a child’s playroom. The horses of Arthur and his retinue are enacted by men with coconut shells. There’s even a little audience interaction. Yet Spamalot is oh so much more than pantomime. The humour, as any Python connoisseur will tell you, is at once delightfully silly and juvenile, yet at the same time masterfully clever and surreal. The attention to detail is remarkably deft; milk bottles, for example, have been surreptitiously placed outside the door to Camelot Castle, playing no ostensible part in the play. They’re just there for fun.
Fans of Monty Python will have already noticed from just the few things I have mentioned how much this production lifts from the original films and television series. Spamalot is billed as ‘A new musical lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail’. They’re not lying. Huge chunks of the script and plot of the 1974 film have been written straight into the play. This is fine by me. It’s a pleasure to see live on stage some of the most memorable routines in film history: Dennis the Constitutional Peasant; the relentlessly committed Black Knight; the killer rabbit that guards the Holy Grail. But, on stage, there is freedom for experiment. Python’s favourite musical number, ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ appears, but with the added delight of background dancing from one of the giant Knights Who Say “Ni”. The excitement from the audience as Eric Idle’s projected face delivers God’s message is testament to the respect that the Pythons still inspire.
For all its channelling of the pre-established grail canon, Terry Jones, co-director of the original film and initial sceptic of the enterprise said, ‘I think the best parts of the musical are the new things.’ One of Spamalot’s strengths is its superb ability to make fun of the conventions of musical theatre. The production grasps the tail of the fish of parody firmly in both hands, and proceeds to repeatedly beat you around the face with it. ‘The Song That Goes Like This’ and ‘Diva’s Lament’ both give a hearty ribbing to the maudlin overblown ballads of Lloyd Webber and Co. The initial Broadway run’s ‘You Won’t Succeed on Broadway if You Don’t Have Any Jews’ has been replaced with ‘You Won’t Succeed in Oxford if You Don’t Have Any Stars’. This gives a delightful nod to the shameless audience-grabbing casting of Marcus Brigstocke as King Arthur. Spamalot is a show that knows exactly what it’s doing, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
For that reason, it’s not getting five stars. It wouldn’t want five stars. But please, please, go along to the New Theatre this week. It’ll make you happy to be alive.
4 stars
