What do: Women getting slapped with Salmon, show girls singing about songs dragging on, musical numbers making fun of Finland, and a big tall guy with a helmet with moose antlers rapping…(takes breath), all have in common? They’re all part of the New Monty Python Musical: Spamalot, the new offspring of Eric Idle with music by Eric Ilde and John Duprez. The musical comedy starts off with a historian telling us of a time when England was a place run by kings of honor, knights wanting to prove their honor, and many battles between lots of sects of people that aren’t so important, and with that curtains part where…A bunch of Finland women and men in clogs dance around slapping each other in the face with Salmon.
You might say to yourself, “Oh wait that wasn’t in theMonty Python Search for the Holy Grail movie, from which this musical is based.” Well you’d be completely right. There are new scenes spliced in between your favorite scenes from the original movie that
will make you laugh until your ribs quake. For example, Arthur, the leader of the troop of knights on the quest for the Holy Grail,tells a story to a few peasants of how he is the King of Britain; that some lady sauntering out of a lake gave him Excalibur and thus from this he was made the king. This leads to the peasants discussion of autocratic dictatorship, blab la bla, but then, the musical goes on to tell the story, how Arthur, King of the Britons got the sword; the woman who gave him the sword; by the end of the musical they fall in love and are married, along with a bunch of other people – oh wait
did I tell you the ending?” Yea cause the endings are what matter in a Monty Python movie, or in this case a musical (sarcasm). No, not at all.
The musical is filled with classic slapstick comedy, slapstick comedy which – if you are a fan of the Monty Python movies – will make the expensive ticket price more bearable. You will wrap your feeble mind around the idea that, women dancing in scantily clothes; a knight finding out he is in fact gay; and people wetting themselves in fear are all actually cultural when inside a theatre. At least that’s what I am still trying to convince myself to believe. On a side note if you are finding it hard to afford tickets use the theatre as a form of culture argument to get your loved ones (relatives) to pay for it.
After the entire audience feels like they can bear no laughter they make them laugh some more with pulling a member of the audience onto stage, I won’t say how (because the grail is under the person’s seat), or what they exactly do to the person (humiliate them), but its enough to keep the laughter going until you just can’t take it. The only thing I didn’t find so impressive was the amount of money for the souvenirs. 25 bucks for a t-shirt, 25 bucks for a mug, 25 bucks for a…actually almost everything was 25 bucks; actually, the can of Spam only cost 15 bucks. Well anyways start swindling your way to get tickets, because it is only around ’til April 15th, but if you enjoy Monty Python films, you’ll utterly enjoy this hilarious musical. Check out www.broadwayinboston.com for more details on prices and seating arrangements.