Monty Python's Spamalot - Palace Theatre

SYNOPSIS

Monty Python's Spamalot

Python are back! More than three decades after Eric Idle, John Cleese and the gang brought us one the silliest films ever in the shape of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", the Pythons are making us laugh all over again with a stage adaptation of the 1975 film. Complete with killer rabbits, dancing girls and the 'knights who say ni!', Monty Python's Spamalot is the quirky and irreverent telling of the tale of King Arthur and the Round Table in the style of a stage musical. It features many of the scenes that made the film a classic hit, and introduces plenty of wacky 'pythonesque' moments - including improvisation - that work a treat on stage. If you've time only to watch one musical this year, make it Spamalot. It's likely to be the most hilarious show that you ever see!

Spamalot is born

Eric Idle is the creative force behind Monty Python's Spamalot. One of the original Python team, Idle wrote the book and lyrics for the musical in 2004 at his home in Los Angeles. In collaboration with Sheffield-born composer, John Du Prez, the music for the stage production took shape, and arrangements of old favourites like "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", were worked into the score.

American Emmy Award winner Mike Nichols was chosen to direct the musical, and he did a great job. To the (continued) disbelief of Eric Idle, Mike Nichols took the show by the scruff of the neck and turned it into a Tony Award winning musical, which included scooping the 2004-2005 Tony Award for Best Musical.

The show started out life on stage in Chicago towards the end of 2004. After a few changes it transferred to Broadway on March 17, 2005 and became an instant success - despite Eric Idle's reservations as to whether the US audience would 'bond' with the quintessentially English humour -- and also with those accents of the 'French People'.

Following its debut on Broadway, Spamalot reached the UK on September 30, 2006. It is currently playing at the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End.

King Arthur and his Knights
 
With Spamalot Eric Idle has brought to the stage a version of King Arthur that is humorous and witty. The first part of the musical sees the King recruit, in various bizarre situations, his Knights of the Round Table. They gather at Camelot -- a place of revelry, gambling and dancing girls in the style of a Las Vegas resort.

God then appears and booms down to them in the voice of John Cleese. He tells them to find the Holy Grail, and thus the quest begins for Arthur and his knights!

The journey sees them insulted by French soldiers, defeated in a plan to enter a castle by forgetting to jump into a Trojan rabbit, beaten back by flying farmyard animals, and sent round in circles in their efforts to find a 'shrubbery' for the knights who say ni!

Stranger still, King Arthur is challenged to create a musical before being confronted by a  'knight-decapitating' giant rabbit. After seeing the evil rabbit off it all ends happily for King Arthur and his knights when the Holy Grail is found…under the seat of a member of the audience!

Bizarre? You bet - but you won't see anything funnier this year!