Monty Python’s Spamalot

Last year Harvest Rain started dipping their toes into the professional waters but with Spamalot they’ve taken the plunge and come up with the funniest, silliest and wackiest musical theatre production of the year. I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s a glorious romp through the King Arthur legend which Tim O’Connor’s cast of experienced laugh-getters embraced with OTT pleasure.

I’d never seen Spamalot before but I love and adore the Life of Brian movie so my expectations were high. Not only was I blown out of the water but I was blown sky high by the giddiness of it all and the delivery which at times was pure vaudeville. Yes, it may be a bit Python-lite and the skewering of musical theatre conventions maybe a bit out of left field even for Python, but for a night of sheer entertaining lunacy it would be hard to beat.

Based on the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the story is a mash-up of Arthurian tales, bits of the Life of Brian, and lots of musical theatre send-ups particularly Andrew Lloyd Webber.

As King Arthur, Jon English was funny and led the Knights with theatrical panache in the insanely jaunty “Always Look on the Bright Side”, a hold-over from the Life of Brian movie. Simon Gallaher was a big bundle of laughs as Arthur’s trusty servant Patsy and had a field day with the local references, but it was Frank Woodley in a number of roles who was the constant audience-pleaser. His turn as the French Taunter speaking gibberish and fractured French was simply hilarious, as was his Brother Maynard and Sir Robin, but he brought the house down with his “You Won’t Succeed in Showbiz” with its lyrics cleverly reworked to include allusions to local personalities and stars. The song in its original Broadway outing referred to not succeeding on Broadway unless you were a Jew but was rewritten for the 2009 UK tour which broadened the idea to not succeeding on Broadway unless you had a star. In this production it became even more provincial with not succeeding at QPAC unless you had a star.

Julie Anthony brought vocal clout to the pivotal role of the Lady in the Lake giving spot-on caricatures of big belting musical theatre divas, lounge singers, and Australian Idol contestants. Her big-number, the duet “The Song That Goes Like This”, which she knows by heart having sung it in her Morning Melodies act for years, caught the satire brilliantly and was only hampered by her vocally under-powered co-star Stephen Hurst as Sir Gallahad.

Chris Kellett in hot pants was a flamboyant Peter Allen-ish Sir Lancelot, with Dash Kruck impressive as the Narrator, the Head Minstrel and the girly Prince Herbert. George Canham’s dance moves energetically captured showgirl Vegas, cheerleaders, and disco, while Josh McIntosh’s costumes were appropriately medieval.

Maitlohn John’s, small but effective band of three keyboards and drums added pace to Tim O’Connor’s production which zipped along as fast as the NBN. The cast encored with “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” and when they exhorted the audience to sing-a-long I couldn’t resist.

Peter Pinne