Spamalot 21.03.14

 On 21^st March 2014 Joe and I went to the Playhouse Theatre in London to see the Westend Show Spamalot.

Spamalot Logo 2014 - illustrated by Miss A Nash.

The original 2005 Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, won three Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical of the 2004–2005 season and received 14 Tony Award nominations.

Joe had seen the touring production of Spamalot and I had seen the Original London production at The Palace theatre. (When I saw it I was sat in seat E1 – to those in the know, you know what I JUST missed out on) from both our accounts the production was the same as the touring one – I remember a higher production value and more than two dancing girls.)

The show is ‘lovingly ripped off from Month Python and the Holy Grail.’ By Eric Idle and John Du Prez.

It’s the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and features a bevy of beautiful showgirls, flying cows, killer rabbits and French people… whilst on the search for the Holy Grail.

(This is an extract taken from their wikipedia page and the official spamalot website. Of which I have a slight issue, I personally don’t classify two girls as a bevy.)

Comedian Joe Pasquale played our King Arthur – I have to admit that during the whole show I felt I was watching Joe Pasquale saying dialogue and NOT particularly acting the role of King Arthur. He was entertaining, he hit his marks in the dancing but on the whole I was disappointed. There was ad-libbing and giggling. I’m pretty positive that he has places within the show where he was allowed to break the fourth wall – and in true Python Style is felt random – especially when he started talking about Bruce Willis riding in on a shark. 

MY problem is that it felt like a competition to make cast members corpse and not to entertain the audience. Rob Delaney (The show’s Sir Robin) seemed to get the brunt of the attention. They cast would be able to pull the show back instantly which although is impressive, makes me suspicious that it could have been ‘directed’ - I know that sometimes intentional corpsing and mistakes occur (but usually only in professional pantomime.)

I have questions about standards – would a ‘regular’ actor playing that part be granted that liberty of adlibbing and corpsing? I don’t know. I do know that being a name and being a comedian that a certain amount of le-way is allowed. People come to see his name and to see him do what he does. I also know that the number called ‘You won’t succeed in showbiz’ had a nice ring of irony to it.

Bonnie Langford played the lady of the lake. And although older than previous Ladies I’ve seen in that part I thought she was great, definitely no stranger to musical theatre. She looked like she was enjoying the role and her characterisation and performance was very funny - it’s a great part and one I would like to play someday – oh, and did I mention it’s the ONLY female part in the show?

 The Lady of the Lake songs are great (The Song that goes like this, Find your Grail and Whatever happened to my part especially) – the songs have had some changes to them, compared to the original London cast recording end notes are less operatic and keys are slightly lower. This is an observation on how they’ve changed the part, not on Bonnie Langford's performance (which was excellent.)

The Lady of the Lake - Illustration by Miss A Nash

Joe and I had a long discussion about songs from Spamalot – the most popular song to take from this for concerts seems to has been The Song that goes like this (I’ve heard it in the last four amateur shows/concerts within the last 8 months) but we were saying our preferences – mine would be Find your Grail as a bit of a different full company number – it’s not a difficult concept song and it’s funny with some lovely harmonies. Joe’s was Camelot - which I also agree would be a great company number – it’s so well known from the film that it would be fine within a musical concert.

It was the second time that Joe had seen it – the first time was when it came to Norwich.  He said it had blatantly been downsized for the tour and that was the version that we saw on Friday. He still found it funny, but wished he’d seen the proper full-scale production at the Palace theatre when it opened. Overall. It’s a fun show and we both enjoyed it – it wasn’t the best version I had seen, I had too many bones to pick with the baiting and ad-libing (call me old fashioned, but I think it’s unprofessional.) – But because it’s a Monty python Show you are guaranteed a great giggle. I can’t wait for the amateur rights to become available as This will be a great show for amateur companies to do.

Joseph Betts at Spamalot 21.03.14

April Nash at Spamalot - 21.03.1