Spamalot!

I was expecting it to be fair to middling, to be perfectly honest. I didn't see how something as indie as Holy Grail (I know it's mainstream now, but it was indie when they first made it!) could translate into a major musical. I figured it would hit all the plot points and in-jokes, throw in a few musical numbers, and we'd have a perfectly adequate night's entertainment and some nice royalties for the Python chaps. I was indifferent myself, but some of my friends wanted to go, and I am the resident Torontoise Python fan, so off we went.

Turns out I was way wrong - it was hilarious! It's very tightly packed, with something laugh-out-loud funny happening on stage like every 10 seconds or so. My friend who had never seen Holy Grail (!) was laughing constantly throughout! The delivery and timing were flawless, but not so flawless that it sounded like Python fans quoting the whole thing. The actors alluded to the voices of the original Pythons in their delivery, but again it didn't sound like fan imitation. Plus there were frequently little things thrown in - a gesture or a sound effect or a prop (HAY!) that added an extra layer of humour to the scene without breaking stride, and often took us two beats to realize it was there.

The stagecraft was also very good. Stagecraft was something they could quite easily have phoned in, but in several places we found ourselves remarking "Ooh, that's clever!", and in a few others we found ourselves wondering how exactly they did what they just did. (Hint: the Black Knight scene is there, intact. I could guess at how it was done, but I could well be wrong.)

There were only two things I didn't like. One was the inclusion of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which doesn't belong in Holy Grail, it belongs in Life of Brian! The other is the fact that the female cast members never got to do anything funny! Their roles were decorative or functional, but never humourous. I realize the original is essentially an all-male cast, but in a big complex musical number with lots of things going on, you'd think that at least once or twice one of the girls could have gotten to do something funny.

It certainly isn't Holy Grail. It's missing some key scenes, namely the witch and the bridge, and it's about half Holy Grail and half parody of musical theatre. However, it is also the most I have laughed in a two-hour period in recent memory, and I would see it again tomorrow if someone gave me a ticket, especially if the seat number ended in 101.