Theatre
Spamalot
King's Theatre, Glasgow
Alison Kerr
3 stars
The Spanish Inquisition didn't turn up at the opening night of Spamalot in Glasgow on Monday, but if they had, it would have been no more unexpected than the fact that, for a dedicated Monty Python fan and Spamalot virgin, this show turned out to be something of a disappointment.
Eric Idle's musicalisation of the group's glorious 1975 film outing, Monty Python And The Holy Grail, is - on the evidence of Monday night's performance - considerably more puerile than Python. With helium-voiced, 1970s-throwback comedian Joe Pasquale as King Arthur and a childish and frankly wearing fascination with flatulence, swearing, ITV celebrities and gay-ness, the show might have been controversial in 1975 but it just felt a bit dated and rather juvenile in 2015.
Easily the best bits were those lifted straight from Python, where you could almost hear the original voices and where the physical performances mimicked those of the Python team and brought back memories of when you first saw them. Fish-slapping dances never grow old - as the opening scene demonstrated - and the highlight of the show was undoubtedly King Arthur's sword battle with the Black Knight, who, despite having had a complete set of arms cut off ("tis but a flesh wound"), hops around menacingly - very much in the manner of John Cleese - taunting the king to continue with the fight.
Joe Tracini, as Patsy - Arthur's glaccid, speccy sidekick - stands out, along with Sarah Earnshaw, whose Lady of the Lake was a cross between Miss Piggy and Ethel Merman. Richard Kent, whose most memorable roles included Not Dead Fred and the effete Prince Herbert, also provided laughs with his rubber-limbed moves.
Run ends Saturday
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