“I said England, not Finland!”

The Aussie and I saw Spamalot last night at London’s Palace Theatre.

Now, normally I’m not one for musical theatre, the main exception being when it’s funny. Since I grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and dearly love Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this counted as “funny”.

It delivered what we expected: lots of silliness, the rough outline of Grail the movie with many of the same skits, and the good-natured teasing of some sacred cows. Whereas those cows in the film were religion and British society and royalty and actual cows, this theatrical production added…well, theatrical productions to the list. Thus, we get “The Song That Goes Like This” and “You Can’t Succeed In Showbiz If You Don’t Have Any Jews”.

All in all, decent fun. The Killer Rabbit scene and the Black Knight scene were carried off quite well, given their requisite amputations. The single greatest improvement was the stunning and powerfully (funny) voiced Lady of the Lake. She kicked ass.  A crowd-pleasing addition – although somewhat of a cheat for purists like me – was the inclusion of the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.