One of my favourite lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail occurs immediately after the song that gives this musical adaptation its title: “On second thoughts, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.” As if silliness were ever going to be a barrier for a member of Monty Python, the English comedians who built their reputation on the sublimity of their ridiculousness.
The 1975 film – their first, after the success of their utterly bonkers television sketch comedy Monty Python’s Flying Circus – is a riot of visual gags, literary parody and surprisingly sharp medieval-themed satire. Shoving large chunks of it on stage will generate laughs, but whether it makes a satisfying translation to musical theatre is another matter. The result, with book and lyrics by original Python cast member Eric Idle, is certainly not a musical in the traditional sense of having a score and songs that evolve the plot and characters; it’s more like a musical revue, cobbled and approximate.
An elaborate piss-take of Arthurian legend, Spamalot tells the tale of King Arthur (Stephen Curry) and his quest for the holy grail – although, like the film, its grasp on narrative clarity is deliberately tenuous. Many of the key scenes from the original are included with minor cuts and alterations: we get servant Patsy (Jamie Rolton) clicking coconuts together to make the sound of horse hooves in lieu of actual horses; we get the Knights Who Say Ni and their demands for a shrubbery (sadly only the one); we get one of the funniest exchanges in all of Python, as Dennis the peasant (Ethan Jones) argues that “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government”, as true today as it was in plague-ridden medieval England.
New elements are introduced, and some of them add immensely to the overall effect. Jaz Flowers, a criminally underrated talent in this country, is both iridescent and earthy as the Lady of the Lake, an expanded role that encapsulates parts played in the film by Carol Cleveland. She has two terrific numbers – The Song That Goes Like This, and Diva’s Lament (What Ever Happened to My Part?) – that gently send up musical theatre cliches, and she brings great reserves of charm and presence to the production. Rolton is a pitch-perfect Patsy, hangdog and ruefully obedient, a knock-off Sancho Panza (with a hidden talent that provides another production highlight).
Other additions are tacky in the extreme. The inclusion of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, shoehorned into the narrative in a way that kills the song’s delicious irony, smacks of either laziness or cynicism. The Black Knight is a ghastly projection on the back wall, leading to a desultory sword fight. Worst of all is the pre-show highlight reel of Monty Python clips taken from the films and television series – one that could have included any of literally hundreds of examples of their work – that finishes on a grossly outdated, blatantly anti-trans exchange from The Life of Brian. It’s a bizarre, offensive way to open a comedy in 2026.
Drew Anthony directs (he’s also producer and co-production designer) with some sense of the absurdity but not quite enough of the anarchic, scattergun ethos of the original. He leaves room for individual performances to shine – Gareth Isaac is suitably goofy as Sir Robin and Noah Skape and Jesse Vasiliadis carve their own hilarious paths in roles played in the film by Terry Jones and John Cleese – but most of the scenes of extended dialogue lifted directly from the source are flat and lifeless. The show sometimes feels dangerously like a bunch of nerds quoting Python together at parties while everyone else rolls their eyes lugubriously.
Curry is the ostensible drawcard, and he carries the piece with insouciant ease, emphasising Arthur’s hubris and carelessness over the more petulant frustrations of Graham Chapman’s film version. This Arthur is perpetually exhausted but also totally detached and indifferent, as if a flying cow were the same as a killer bunny to him. It’s a funny take, if slightly enervating.
Spamalot won the 2005 Tony Award for best musical in a year that included 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and The Light in the Piazza, so it’s basically the Rocky of musical theatre, punching away as if a Nobel is next. But cash grabs and nostalgia baiting can only take you so far; at some point, you have to justify your own existence. Spamalot is entertaining enough, but a new musical that evokes the spirit of Monty Python while following its own quest … now that would be a holy grail.
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Monty Python’s Spamalot is on at the Athenaeum theatre until 11 October, then the Sydney Event Centre and Coliseum theatre in Sydney in October.
