Music Festival News

Sorry, it’s not a music festival… But it is an on-stage musical (yeah, there’s a connection there!), so I thought I’d share a quick review I did for Monty Python’s ‘Spamalot’ in November of last year.

On Wednesday evening I went to the Palace Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue to go and see Spamalot, the music al’lovingly ripped off’ from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Now I’m not going to tell you all about it, because that won’t be relevant, nor would it be to tell you we had literally the scariest seats known to man (it was like sitting on a cliffside, seriously), but I thought I’d just write a quick blog about the soundtrack.

Anyone who’s familiar with the film will know many of the songs already, from the spot-on chant performed by the monks hitting themselves with planks of wood (’Pie Iesu Domine. Dona Eis Requiem’), The Knights of the Round Table (’we dance whenever we’re able!’), Brave Sir Robin (’he was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways, oh brave Sir Robin’), and of course the Python and popular culture standard Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, complete with audience whistling.

But the creators have thrown some new ones in there, with admittedly mixed results. Whilst the show itself was excellent, some of the songs can fall a bit flat. For instance, the Lady of the Lake has a role which is seemingly just to sing irritating songs in a loud voice, such as ‘the Song which Goes Like This’, a pastiche of over-the-top musicals, and ‘Diva’s Lament (Whatever Happened to My Part)’, fairly self-explanatory; I’m not really sure why she had a part in the first place.

‘His Name is Lancelot’ was another one which didn’t impress me too much; Lancelot, played by a pretty awful Coronation Street actor comes out gay to a disco beat and garish lights. Yeah, I know.

The rest was alright, thankfully, and ‘He’s Not Dead Yet’, a song and dance performed by plague victims, was a welcome addition, and a song called ‘You Won’t Succeed in the West End’ starts off frankly bewildering most of the audience, but soon gets peoples’ heads bobbing. It’s a song about how King Arthur will never make it in the West End (an odd storyline in the first place) without a load of Jews. Sung to an infectious Hebrew jig (?) in front of a huge Star of David. Yep.

Off topic, but in the end we find out King Arthur’s faithful servant Patsy is Jewish. Arthur asks Patsy why he never said anything, to which he replies ‘not the sort of thing you usually say to a heavily armed Christian!’; it got the biggest laugh of the show in the end.

You can find some videos and songs from the show at http://montypythonsspamalot.com/media.php