Spamalot

What a joy, an evening in the theatre where I laughed from curtain up to curtain down, unbridled laughter, the kind that makes your sides ache and tears run don your cheeks – which is amazing as this the my fifth time seeing the genius that is Eric Idle’s musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In part it has to be the enduring quality of the content, the jokes are pretty timeless, although one about gay marriage might now have been eclipsed, but there has to be something more. In this case it is the cast. No big names here, but big performances all round, unbounded energy and above all talent. They are truly committed to every line, every step, every note, every prat fall and aside. They make it work as well as the Broadway and West End original, despite having a far less impressive set, this one is a little threadbare, or technical wizardry. They prove that if the play is well constructed it needs little more than their talent to delight an audience and last night we were delighted by the gags, the spoof musical numbers, some of which really stand alone as great songs, and the memory of a TV show that went a long way towards changing the face of comedy for ever.

6 February

Devonshire Park Theatre

Andrew Kay

[rating: 4.5]