Saturday 20 September 2014

Birthmonth Day Twenty: Monty Python’s Spamalot


DAY TWENTY.  AGE TWENTY.
Quantum Leap!

That friend of mine (The Leo) who first went to see The Producers with me…


also once took me to see an open air classical music concert at a castle which was very cool apart from
Apparently anyway.  I’m pretty sure they were killer wasps, since they were the wrong colour for June Bugs.  But then again, wasps like me so I probably wasn’t in danger.

EDIT: The Mother says these were probably hornets.  So that little old lady who told us all that they were June Bugs was lying as I suspected at the time and just wanted to stop us all running around screaming.

And another time we went to see Monty Python’s Spamalot (lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail from the original screenplay by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, book & lyrics by Eric Idle, music by John Du Prez and Eric Idle/Palace Theatre/5th October 2007) for The Birthday one year (gonna guess it was 2007...).

There was a slight hiccup when we arrived at the Queen’s Theatre and found a huge Les Misérables billboard out front.

We made it to the PALACE THEATRE with about a minute to spare.

The show was okay, but not as good as I expected.  I think partly this was because I had already heard the soundtrack a lot, so there was no magical surprise when the musical numbers started, in fact they were less imaginative than in The Head.  And the plot veers drastically away from the (very good) film it is based on and goes into some bizarre Broadway/West End parody, which y’know was brilliant when The Producers did it but pretty lame when a story about King Arthur does it, and it misses a lot of the really funny stuff from the film.  While I’ve always found Monty Python quoting outside of the actual members of Python to be skin-crawlingly embarrassing and this show is basically just that for two hours.  And I was surprised that I wasn’t hugely impressed with Peter Davison (whom I love as a wife).  The only bit I really enjoyed was the Lancelot being gay stuff, probably because it expanded an idea rather than a) parroting an old sketch or b) randomly going off on some irrelevant Broadway or Vegas joke.

So a bit disappointing, maybe because I was so excited about seeing it in the first place.

But in the long run, if anyone else wants to buy me a theatre ticket for The Birthday, I am totally grateful. 

And I still love Peter Davison, regardless.
 
Spampion


What tickets have you been given as a birthday present?

2 comments:

  1. I got a sinking feeling early on in Spamalot, when the castle guards started veering off into the Parrot Sketch, and a few members of the audience started joining in. Just felt like karaoke. *Nobody's* going to be funnier at this than Monty Python, and they're not here. Spent the whole thing after that thinking, yeah, I'd rather watch The Holy Grail.

    And bless Peter Davison, but he can't sing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This, however, will not stop him from doing it. In everything.

      Delete

I look forward to your enthusiastic and loving comment.