Spamalot
Spamalot (also known as Monty Python's Spamalot: A Musical (Lovingly) Ripped Off from the Motion Picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail) is a stage musical with score by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, with lyrics and book by Idle. Based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the musical offers a highly irreverent parody of Arthurian legend.
Spamalot
The original 2005 Broadway production directed by Mike Nichols received 14 Tony Award nominations, winning in three categories, including Best Musical. During its initial run of 1,575 performances, the production was seen by more than two million people and grossed over $175 million.[1] Tim Curry starred as King Arthur in the original Broadway and West End productions. It was one of eight UK musicals commemorated on Royal Mail stamps, issued in February 2011.[2]
A Paramount Pictures film adaptation, directed by Casey Nicholaw in his directorial debut from a script by Idle, was in pre-production as of 2021.[3] Idle later stated on Twitter that the film would not be made due to two other of his former colleagues vetoing the project.[4]
Synopsis[edit]
Act I[edit]
A historian narrates a brief overview of medieval England. In a miscommunication between the actors and the narrator, the actors sing an introductory song about Finland ("Fisch Schlapping Song"). The Historian returns, irritated, and tells the frolicking Finns that he was talking about England, not Finland. The scene immediately changes to a dreary, dark village with penitent monks in hooded robes chanting Latin and hitting themselves with books. King Arthur travels the land with his servant, Patsy, who follows him around banging two coconut shells together to make the sound of a horse's hooves as Arthur "rides" before him. Arthur aims to recruit Knights of the Round Table to join him in Camelot. Arthur and Patsy encounter a pair of sentries who begin debating the probability of finding a coconut in a non-tropical climate.
Robin, a collector of plague victims, and Lancelot, a handsome and hot-tempered man, meet as Lancelot attempts to dispose of the sickly Not Dead Fred. Although a plague victim, the man insists that he is not dead yet and he can dance and sing. He begins performing a dance number, but is soon knocked unconscious with a shovel by an impatient Lancelot ("He Is Not Dead Yet"). Lancelot and Robin agree to become Knights together; Lancelot wants to fight in battles, and Robin wants to sing and dance professionally. Not Dead Fred revives, declaring he will serve as Robin's musician.
While attempting to recruit a peasant named Dennis Galahad, Arthur explains that he became King of England because the Lady of the Lake gave him Excalibur, the sword given only to the man fit to rule England. However, Dennis and his mother, Mrs Galahad, are political radicals and say that any king who has not been elected by the people has no legitimate right to rule over them. To settle the issue, Arthur asks the Lady of the Lake and her Laker Girls (named after the cheerleading squad) to appear before Dennis, which they promptly do ("Come with Me"). Cheered on by the girls ("Laker Girls Cheer"), the Lady of the Lake turns Dennis into Sir Galahad and together, they sing a generic Broadway love song ("The Song That Goes Like This"). Arthur knights Galahad, and subsequently Robin and Lancelot. Together with Sir Bedevere and the "aptly named" Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Show (a knight resembling Don Quixote, who promptly apologises and leaves), they become the Knights of the Round Table ("All for One").
The five knights gather in Camelot, a deliberately anachronistic place resembling Las Vegas's Camelot-inspired Excalibur resort, complete with showgirls, oversized dice and the Lady of the Lake as a lounge singer reminiscent of Liza Minnelli ("Knights of the Round Table" / "The Song That Goes Like This (Reprise)"). In the midst of their revelry, they are contacted by God (a recording voiced by John Cleese in the original Broadway production, Eric Idle in the version that toured the UK, and Steve Martin in the Broadway revival), who tells them to locate the Holy Grail.
Urged on by the Lady of the Lake ("Find Your Grail"), the knights set off. They travel throughout the land until they reach a castle, only to be viciously taunted by lewd French soldiers. (In the 2023 revival, Arthur and Galahad, respectively portrayed by Black actors James Monroe Iglehart and Nik Walker, scream back at the soldiers after mistaking the lead soldier's mispronunciation of 'knight' for the n-word.) Bedevere comes up with the idea to retaliate by sending them a large wooden rabbit in the style of the Trojan horse; however, the knights realize after the fact that they forgot to hide inside the rabbit before the French soldiers took it. Defeated, they leave in a hurry when the French soldiers begin taunting them again, sending cancan dancers after them and throwing barnyard animals at them ("Run Away!"). Arthur and his followers manage to run into the safety of the wings before the French soldiers catapult the Trojan rabbit at them.
Act II[edit]
The knights are separated after the French soldiers' attack. Arthur and Patsy become lost in a "dark and very expensive forest". Arthur meets the terrifying but silly Knights Who Say Ni, who demand a shrubbery. Arthur has no idea where to find a shrubbery, but Patsy cheers him up ("Always Look on the Bright Side of Life") and they find a shrubbery shortly after. Sir Robin wanders the forest with his minstrels ("Brave Sir Robin"). They encounter the Black Knight, who scares Robin away. Arthur then encounters the Black Knight and defeats him by cutting off both his arms and legs, impaling his still-alive torso on a door, and leaving to give the shrubbery to the Knights Who Say Ni.
Arthur and Robin reunite. The Knights Who Say Ni accept the shrubbery, but then demand that Arthur put on a musical and bring it to Broadway (in the United Kingdom, this became a West End musical; on the tour, they must put on a "Broadway musical", implying that it need only be Broadway-style, "but not an Andrew Lloyd Webber". The mere mention of his name causes everyone to cover their ears and scream in pain). Robin insists that it would be impossible to accomplish this next task, since a successful Broadway (or West End) musical requires the involvement of Jews ("You Won't Succeed on Broadway"). Robin proves his point in a wild production number filled with Ashkenazi Jewish cultural references, a list of Jewish celebrities known for their work on Broadway (including Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, Stephen Sondheim, and as a joke in the 2023 revival, George Santos), and a Fiddler on the Roof parody involving a bottle dance with Grails instead of bottles. Arthur and Patsy promptly set off in search of Jews.
(In countries that don't have a tradition of Jews in the theatre, the lyrics of "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" are sometimes changed to instead describe the high production standards and acting talent needed to stage a successful musical in that country. For example, in the South Korean version, Sir Robin sings about recent successful musicals that were staged in Seoul during the previous decade. Meanwhile, members of the ensemble appear onstage dressed as various characters from those musicals. Among these characters are a cat from Cats, Kenickie from Grease, Kim from Miss Saigon, the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera, and Velma Kelly from Chicago. As with the original version of the song, Sir Robin and the entire ensemble end the number with a song and dance routine.)
While the Lady of the Lake laments her lack of stage time ("Whatever Happened to My Part?"), Sir Lancelot receives a letter of distress from someone who is being forced into an arranged marriage. He is very surprised to find that the supposed "damsel in distress" is actually an effeminate young man named Prince Herbert ("Where Are You?" / "Here Are You"). Herbert asks Lancelot to help him escape. Herbert's music-hating father, the King of Swamp Castle, cuts the rope that Herbert is using to climb out of the window, and Herbert falls to his apparent death. Lancelot is a bit puzzled at the king's actions, but it is revealed that Herbert was saved at the last minute by Lancelot's sidekick, Concorde. When Herbert begins to explain, in song, how he was saved, the king charges at Herbert with a spear, preparing to kill him. Lancelot steps in to save Herbert, then gives a tearful, heartfelt speech to the king about sensitivity on Herbert's behalf. The king correctly guesses that Lancelot is homosexual, and Herbert helps Lancelot accept his sexuality in a disco number ("His Name Is Lancelot").
King Arthur begins to give up hope of ever putting on a Broadway musical and laments that he is alone, ignoring Patsy ("I'm All Alone"). The Lady of the Lake appears and tells Arthur that he and the Knights have been in a Broadway musical all along (in some productions she also points out Patsy's presence, to which Arthur claims that he sees Patsy as "family" and thus does not always consider him a separate person). Patsy reveals he is half Jewish, but did not previously inform Arthur because "that's not really the sort of thing you say to a heavily armed Christian." The Lady of the Lake tells Arthur that to end the musical, he must find the Grail and marry someone. Arthur proposes to the Lady of the Lake, and she happily accepts. They plan to marry after Arthur finds the Grail ("Twice in Every Show").
The knights reunite and meet Tim the Enchanter, who warns them of the danger of a killer rabbit. When the rabbit bites a knight's head off, Arthur uses the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch against it, knocking down a nearby hill and revealing that the "evil rabbit" was actually a puppet controlled by a surprised puppeteer. A large stone block showing a combination of letters and numbers is also revealed. (The letters are based on the seat numbering system used by each theatre. They are changed from performance to performance to discourage audience members from intentionally booking any of the possible seats. The seat is typically on the aisle in one of the first few rows nearest the orchestra. In the Broadway production and on the tour it is either A101, B101, C101 or D101; i.e., Seat 101 – which is house right of the center aisle – of Rows A, B, C, or D.[6] In the West End production a word is revealed – DONE, CONE or BONE, referring to D1, C1 and B1 respectively.)
After pondering the final clue, Arthur admits that they're "a bit stumped with the clue thing" and asks God to "give them a hand". A large hand points to the audience and Arthur realises that the letters and numbers refer to a seat number in the audience. The grail is "found" (with some sleight of hand) under the seat, and the person sitting in the seat is rewarded with a small trophy and a polaroid photo ("The Holy Grail"). Arthur marries the Lady of the Lake (who reveals that her name is Guinevere) and Lancelot marries Herbert, who finally gets a chance to sing. Sir Robin decides to pursue a career in musical theatre. The King of Swamp Castle attempts to interrupt the finale and stop all of the "bloody singing", but Lancelot knocks him unconscious with a shovel. The company then invites the audience to partake in a sing-along of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". ("Act 2 Finale / Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Company Bow)").
The overall duration of the show is about two hours, including the intermission time.
Television[edit]
A special edition of The South Bank Show was a television documentary on the history of Spamalot. It features numerous segments with Eric Idle and John Du Prez explaining the process of writing the songs, plus interviews with UK and US cast members. It included scenes from the rehearsal of the West End show, and was first broadcast on 15 October 2006.
Cancelled film adaptation[edit]
In May 2018, 20th Century Fox announced a film adaptation was in the works with Idle writing the script and Casey Nicholaw attached to direct. The film was reportedly fast-tracked with casting announced soon with shooting to begin in early 2019.[70] The next month it was reported that the studio was looking to cast Benedict Cumberbatch as King Arthur, Peter Dinklage as his servant Patsy and Tiffany Haddish as the Lady of the Lake.[71] Cumberbatch was taken out of consideration due to his involvement in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.[72]
At the time of the release of his memoir Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography in December 2019, Idle said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that "(the movie is) all ready to go" and that it "is not very expensive".[73] He cited the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney as a factor to the film's delay, saying it caused "everything (to come) to a grinding halt". He also stated in an interview around the same time with WBUR-FM that Haddish is still being offered the role of the Lady of the Lake, and that the script has "mostly been solved".[74]
On 6 January 2021, it was announced that the project would move to Paramount Pictures and that it was set to begin pre-production, with Nicholaw officially confirmed to direct from Idle's script and Dan Jinks joining as a producer.[3] Two years later, Idle said that the film would not be happening.[4]
Lawsuit[edit]
In 2013, the Pythons lost a legal case to Mark Forstater, the producer of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, over royalties for Spamalot. He was paid 1/14 of the portion of the profits paid to the Pythons. The court ruled that he was a full Python partner and was to be paid 1/7 of the portion paid to the Pythons. They owed a combined £800,000 in legal fees and back royalties to Forstater, prompting them to produce Monty Python Live (Mostly).[75][76][77]