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January 12th, 2005

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03:47 pm
Idle's Monty Python musical wows US critics
12/01/2005 - 16:40:18

Former Monty Python Eric Idle’s new show Spamalot has opened to acclaim in the United States.

Billed as “the musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, Spamalot won rave reviews for its first night in Chicago.

Directed by Mike Nichols and starring David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria and Tim Curry, Spamalot is “poised to give a mediocre theatre season a much needed lift”, said the New York Post.


The paper described the show as being “made up of nearly two dozen delightfully silly, lavishly produced sketches hung on a clothesline of a plot involving King Arthur (Curry), the Knights of the Round Table and their search for the Holy Grail”.

Nearly £5 million has been collected in advance ticket sales, with predictions that the figure will double.

Fears that Python sketches would fall flat if performed by anyone other than the original Pythons were quickly allayed.

“They and the rest of the cast seem to have channelled the original Pythons, while bringing their own sharp comic instincts to bear on the characters,” the Post said.

Idle said he had no concerns about casting other actors in Python roles.

“I’ve done two Python tours with (non-Python) performers, and I’ve learned that it is the writing that is really funny,” he said.

Much of the show, which moves to New York in March, is a send-up of other Broadway hits.

References to West Side Story, Fiddler On The Roof, Hair and Aida are easy to spot.

Among the spoofs is The Song That Goes Like This, “which could have been ripped off (lovingly!) from just about any show in the Lloyd Webber canon”, the Post said.

Idle said: “There is a moment in many Broadway shows when people come on in ridiculous costumes and sing a generic love song. It always makes me laugh.”

(source)



Holy moley I would love to see them in this!

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

Comments:

[User Picture]
From:[info]fyrdrakken
Date:January 12th, 2005 01:01 pm (UTC)
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Wow, Chicago. When I heard about it first I thought it would be NYC and figured that it and Hugh in The Boy From Oz together might be worth a weekend trip to hit the theaters...
[User Picture]
From:[info]green_ghost
Date:January 12th, 2005 01:13 pm (UTC)
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For sure! Throw Hugh into that mix (your icon is mesmerizing) and that's a bunch of boys worth the ticket. This one is moving to NYC, but too bad Hugh is done with Oz (though I did hear a rumour that he's going to do the film version).
[User Picture]
From:[info]fyrdrakken
Date:January 12th, 2005 01:33 pm (UTC)
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Damn, he's done with it?

Ah, well. Given that I was kicking around vague ideas of plotting a trip to the UK or Ireland at some point in the next year, maybe I'll have to console myself by seeing what Billy Boyd's up to, given the amount of stage work he tends to do...
[User Picture]
From:[info]rosamundeb
Date:January 12th, 2005 02:28 pm (UTC)
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Oh yeah. Thanks. Rub it in. Guess who COULD HAVE TRIED TO GET TIX AND GO BUT THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A BIG FLOP? Go ahead. Guess.

Right.

*groans*
[User Picture]
From:[info]green_ghost
Date:January 12th, 2005 03:23 pm (UTC)
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IEEEEE!!! With a cast like that, you shoulda just gone anyway!!!
[User Picture]
From:[info]rosamundeb
Date:January 12th, 2005 05:52 pm (UTC)
(Link)
*moans* I know, I know... but it happened just before Christmas, and I forgot!!!

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