Ridiculous history: Before there was Spamalot, there was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The British comedy film crossed the pond in 1975 to become a box office hit in the U.S., while entering ridiculous quotes (“It’s just a flesh wound”) into the pop culture lexicon. The wacky retelling of King Arthur’s tale launched the Monty Python comedy troupe to international fame and ingrained them as legends in the English heritage they built a career poking fun at.
Got wit? What happens when Camelot’s King Arthur and his knights get goofy, ridiculous, and even a bit nutty? You get Spamalot, the musical-comedy that swept the Tonys in 2005. The play is an adaptation of the comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which King Arthur recruits a band of disorganized misfit knights to go on a quest for the famed holy grail. The play is irreverent and self-referential; the first musical number features the cast mishearing the narrator and singing about Finland, instead of England.
Billed as a “musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Spamalot parodies the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table using British humor of the highest (Ex)caliber. The original Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, debuted in 2005 and collected three Tonys, including Best Musical. Monty Python member John Cleese describes the staging as “the silliest thing I’ve ever seen.” And in the hands of Fay E. Cunningham directing the Albemarle High School Players, it’s sure to be outrageous fun.