Skip to main content

REVIEW: Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Stratford Festival

int(97697)
/By / Jun 3, 2023
SHARE

Dated material performed well: a recurring theme for some of Ontario’s musical theatre this year.

In some ways, Monty Python’s Spamalot makes sense for a Stratford crowd, as a goofy, high-energy musical to temper the weightier Rents and Casey and Dianas. The low-stress musical whips and whirls across the small Avon Theatre stage, suggesting a world where clacked coconuts represent horse hooves and cheeky musical theatre references peal from the lyrics of the second act. With one glaring exception, the show’s held up since its 2004 Broadway debut, and director Lezlie Wade’s production excels, studded with star performances and impressive aesthetics.

You’d need a heart of stone to resist this show’s rafter-shattering enthusiasm. Spamalot, of course, is the stage adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is itself a highly oddball adaptation of the tale of King Arthur. Most of the Monty Python film’s beats have been preserved for the stage — the “bring out your dead” sequence, for instance, and the flatulent Frenchmen — but they’re enhanced by Jesse Robb’s showy choreography (including an excellent cheerleading interlude!) and Laura Burton’s tight music direction of a note-perfect band.

And wow, what a cast, from Jonathan Goad’s dreamy King Arthur to Eddie Glen’s charming, heartwarming sidekick Patsy. Jennifer Rider-Shaw as the Lady of the Lake is as powerful as she’s ever been, belting out John Du Prez and Eric Idle’s score with excellent technique and stealing every scene she’s in. The ensemble, too, has dance chops to spare, and Robb’s intense choreography gives them the space to flex their prowess without showing any signs of fatigue. Props, as well, to the props (and spangled costumes) designed by David Boechler, as well as Geoff Scovell’s appropriately off-the-wall fight direction.

All this to say, it’s a dandy, family friendly-ish production with more laughs than it knows what to do with. Python fans will likely be delighted.

But a song in the second act gives me pause about the show’s inclusion in the Stratford Festival at all. The song in question is “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway,” the punchline being that King Arthur and his knights, who through a silly turn of events have pivoted their sights from the holy grail to the Great White Way, won’t make it there without Jews. The song approaches the boundaries of good taste through lyrics like these: “You haven’t got a clue/If you don’t have a Jew/All of your investments you are going to lose/There’s a very small percentile who enjoys a dancing Gentile/I’m sad to be the one with this bad news.”

The song’s been changed in productions before: on the West End, the lyrics instead critiqued stunt casting, saying “you won’t succeed in showbiz if you haven’t any stars.” Similar changes were made in a Korean production, preserving the song but altering its lyrics so that they laughed with show business, rather than at the people making it happen — people already subjected to higher rates of anti-Semitic hate crimes than ever before, according to the Anti-Defamation League. There might have been room to adapt the song to a Stratford (or even just Canadian) context — and the energy in the audience might not have fallen so flat with discomfort.

I’ve wondered for a while now when we’ll get a Stratford run of Something Rotten!, the raucous 2015 musical comedy about Shakespeare (a Shakespeare musical! In Stratford!) and the theatre industry in general. In a lot of ways, Something Rotten! and Spamalot are comparable in aesthetic and scope, with glorious dance numbers and cheeky references to the grubby art of theatre-making. And it’s just as zany, too — just replace the coconut horses with a truly psychedelic, show-stopping song about eggs. There’s even more than one speaking role for women. I’d like to see the show here at some point, with all the fun of Spamalot but less of the problematic material.

On its own terms, this Spamalot plays the right notes, ekes out the right giggles, and choreographically stuns. On opening night, it seemed the whole audience shimmied in their seats, rocking out to Idle’s bops and reveling in the jokes from the beloved movie. A sensible programming choice? Maybe — I can’t speak to the prevalence of Monty Python fans in Ontario beyond Stratford’s opening week. But I hope this well-done production of a sometimes-weary text paves the way for other, less contentious musicals down the line.


Spamalot plays at the Stratford Festival until October 28. Tickets are available here.


Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

Aisling Murphy
WRITTEN BY

Aisling Murphy

Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.

LEARN MORE

Comments

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


/
Adam Francis Proulx, Elm Reyes, Kay-Ann Ward in a Toronto Fringe Festival promo photo by Joy Adeola. iPhoto caption: Adam Francis Proulx, Elm Reyes, Kay-Ann Ward in a Fringe promo photo by Joy Adeola.

REVIEWS: Toronto Fringe Festival 2025

This collection of Toronto Fringe Festival capsule reviews will be updated throughout the festival with writing from 20 different critics.

Masae Day, Landon Doak, Michelle Fisk in 'The Wind Coming Over the Sea.' iPhoto caption: Masae Day, Landon Doak, and Michelle Fisk in 'The Wind Coming Over the Sea.' Photo by Lyon Smith.

REVIEW: A new Emma Donoghue musical takes root at the Blyth Festival

As a resident of southwestern Ontario, what struck me most is how deeply rooted in the region The Wind Coming Over the Sea feels. It's a lively reminder of the cultural inheritances that continue to shape the area today.

By Deanne Kearney
The cast of 'Major Barbara.' iPhoto caption: The cast of 'Major Barbara.' Photo by David Cooper.

REVIEW: Shaw Festival’s metatheatrical Major Barbara is sharp and subversive

Director Peter Hinton-Davis draws on a light smattering of Brechtian techniques — acknowledgements of artifice that enrich and vivify Major Barbara’s clash of morals.

By Liam Donovan
The company of Talk is Free Theatre's 'The Frogs.' iPhoto caption: The company of 'The Frogs.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.

REVIEW: In Barrie, Talk Is Free Theatre delivers well-crafted outdoor staging of rare Sondheim musical The Frogs

Staged inches from the audience by director Griffin Hewitt, the show commendably captures the free-wheeling, anarchic spirit of the text. It’s a toad-ally great opportunity to see this rarity in the froggy flesh.

By Ilana Lucas
Jeff Lillico as Ralph with Yoshie Bancroft as Mitsue in 'Forgiveness.' iPhoto caption: Jeff Lillico as Ralph with Yoshie Bancroft as Mitsue in 'Forgiveness.' Photo by David Hou.

REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Forgiveness tells a deeply personal story on a sprawling scale

Presented in an increasingly tense political moment, Forgiveness resonates on a level that is part reflection, part warning.

By Charlotte Lilley
Promo photo for Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree. iPhoto caption: Photo courtesy of Luminato Festival.

REVIEW: Is Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree worth seeing twice at Luminato?

Crouch tests the limits of theatrical representation, improvisation, and authorship. While I’m usually a sucker for exactly those types of experiments, I ultimately found An Oak Tree a bit underwhelming.

By Ryan Borochovitz