The Best Spam I've Ever Had

This past week, I was able to see the touring production of Monty Python's Spamalot as it nears the end of its run here in Denver. I was going into the show from a somewhat odd mix of circumstances.

First, I'm not much of a fan of Monty Python. I've seen The Holy Grail, and The Life of Brian, and neither one made that huge an impact on me. I'd heard a few of their more known sketches when the audio was played on Dr. Demento's show, back in high school when I used to listen to that regularly -- bits like the Dead Parrot, Spam, and so forth. Some laughs, but again, I didn't ever really revere Monty Python in the way many people do. I had much greater respect for some of the work its members would do later, once separated from the troupe.

Secondly, I actually knew this musical rather well, despite never having seen it. Paradoxically, given my relative indifference to Monty Python, I actually own the soundtrack to Spamalot. I haven't listened to it a ton, but enough to be familiar with most of the lyrics, and certainly to know the plot of the show. I just didn't have visuals to go with the music.

The play does lift a great deal of dialogue and scenes from the movie, as one would probably expect. You could tell there were plenty of Python fans in the crowd, because they'd cheer the moment characters like The French Taunter or The Knights Who Say Ni took the stage -- the audience knew what they were about to get.

However, unlike the Disney stage production of The Lion King, which felt like a near-verbatim transcription of the film onto the stage (and I've heard the same is true of their other play adaptations), Spamalot did manage to carve out a good amount of original material as well. Most of it was actually leveraging the new setting, too -- humor that was self-aware and self-referential of the fact that the characters were in fact in a play.

In large part because of this, I think the Monty Python take on the quest for the grail actually worked better as a stage play than as a film. The friends I saw it with thought so too, and one opined that perhaps this was because a play is less bound by the need to have a coherent plot. It can be more experiemental. And musicals in particular ask you to accept the unrealistic. The momentarily flights of... oddness... that both Holy Grail and Spamalot take just seem to fit more naturally on the stage.

And furthermore, a lot of the songs invented for the stage version were real show stoppers. "You Won't Succeed On Broadway" (performed originally and on the soundtrack album by David Hyde Pierce) brought the house down, and the actor playing Sir Robin consequently received more applause at the final curtain than the supposed star, King Arthur. The hilariously showy diva role of The Lady of the Lake is a great parody of Broadway ingenue parts in general.

Not to mention that if there had been nothing else good about the show, it probably still would have been worth seeing for one line, when Arthur's servant reveals he's Jewish and, when asked why this wasn't revealed earlier, replies, "it's not the sort of thing one says to a heavily-armed Christian." A good half minute of deafening laughter and applause, that got.

Ultimately, it was not the sort of show that leaves a lasting impact on you, but it was still a fluffy bit of fun at the theater. With only a few nights' vacation in New York or Las Vegas, you'd probably do better to see some other show with your limited time, rather than the regular productions of Spamalot that play there. But if the show should happen to come to you as it did for me, I'd give it my recommendation.