Sometimes having a popular blog can pay off with things like free tickets to see Spamalot on Broadway, given with the hopes you’ll write something about it. Of course, I don’t seem to warrant that kind of spontaneous generosity – but my sister does, and luckily enough for me, all the people she thought of before me were either out of town or had thrown out their backs! For those of you scoring at home, my current streaks are:

Trying to make good things happen to me: 0 for my last 700 attempts.

Sitting around waiting for others’ misfortune to become my good fortune: 1 for no actual attempts but a couple of years of sitting around.

I’m not sure why they send free tickets to Spamalot to people with food blogs who dont really talk about Python or Broadway, perhaps it was the good folks at Hormel hoping she’d write up a recipe with Spam. While I’m ranting, I’ll also point out that back in 2000 while my brother and I were paying through the nose for nosebleed seats to see the Mets one victory during the subway series, our sister the non-fan got much better seats for free through her job. But I’m not complaining. No seriously, thanks for the ticket.

Now, onto the umpteenth online fanboy review of the show. (Though so far, I’ve only read about half of one, since I wanted to be surprised if I ever got there). First off, it was genuinely funny, and most of the new material was good. They managed to recycle and rework a lot of the movie (and even an effective and clever reuse of some album material) effectively and for much (though not all) of the show, avoided the trap of being the sort of “comedy rock concert” that Python’s live shows became, where the audience is laughing before the punchline of jokes they already know. The website says they’re bringing it to Vegas, and that’s kind of appropriate, because like gambling, as long as you’re not going to miss the money or if you’re playing on somebody else’s dime like I was, you’ll enjoy yourself if you’re so disposed. And of course, if you have an addictive personality that’ll end up quoting the material, maybe you should stay home. As a mostly-reformed Python quoter, I got to say, your cow-orkers don’t want to hear you singing show tunes or saying “Ni”.

Now, on to the serious carping. The second act really got dragged into the Broadway parody and trying to connect the songs and sketches into a story better than the film had. Where the first act had succeeded pretty well in these goals, you could really feel the gears the grind in the second. (Of course, my first big disappointment was the intermission – which lacked the requisite organ music!) Furthermore, most of the new songs weren’t as funny as the old movie material that surrounded them. While “The Song That Goes Like This” was a great parody of the standard Broadway power ballad, the reprises added little, and the rest of the Broadway parodies felt a little forced and pointless.

Not only could you feel the strain to make it a real story, the re-ordering and restructuring often worked against the jokes. While the French taunter is nicely expanded and still hilarious, he’s immediately preceeded by an entirely pointless transition that takes the action out of England, removing a whole layer of weirdness from the scene. Another factor that weakens this and other old bits is that whatever reality was added by the cinematography and Graham Chapman’s performance are gone. Both through the changes in the script and his performance of Harry Groener, who I entirely failed to recognize as the mayor from Buffy, the character of Arhtur has lost all of his – for lack of a better word – authority that helped the film ride the line between clever and just plain goofy. Since I didn’t see the original cast of the musical, I can’t make a comparison, I kind of suspect they didn’t oversell the material as much.

Now, for the really intense nitpicking. There were some odd choices of how the story and the dialog were reworked as a musical and other things that just didn’t work as well in the musical context. Why couldn’t “It’s only a model” have stayed or even become “It’s only a set”? Sure the Trojan Rabbit looked great, but the payoff was badly shortened – seemingly relying on the rock concert effect of the audience remembering the joke unfolding. Later, they rely on the effect and leave a line untouched even though the staging has ruined it: as Herbert stands in front of his curtains and behind his father, both looking at the audience, his father announces “One day son, all this will be yours”, but now gestures towards the audience, instead of the curtains as in the film. But Herbert’s reply is still “What the curtains?” *sigh* And of course, Herbert’s false starts at a musical number and his father’s angry responses were still funny, but a lot less so in the middle of a musical and the updated explanation for the conflict is a little lame.

Both Tim the Enchanter and the killer rabbit are well staged, but the rabbit felt like a missed opportunity to recreate some of the real mayhem of the original scene. They made a valiant attempt with the black knight, but lost the gore and Arthur’s anger that made it work in the movie – this was a real rock concert moment and the live performance didn’t live up to the hit single.

And where was the shrubbery chord? Come on people!

And don’t miss your chance to participate in #11…starting sooner or later. More fun than a bag full of hammers!