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Monty Python's Spamalot (2005 Original Broadway Cast)
: I have had the pleasure of seeing Spamalot on broadway, and all of you who have not and can, I suggest you do so while this cast is still in the production.
This album captures the music from the play wonderfully. The revisioning of "knights of the round table" is amusing in it's own right, and "you won't suceed on broadway" will leave you on the floor.
This is highly recomneded for Python and comedy fans all over!
Absolutely hysterical. I loved the words to the songs and especially the Lady of the Lake and The Laker Girls. Too funny. I watched to movie again and really enjoyed it even more after the movie. Can't wait to see it on Broadway on my next visit to NYC.
If we can't have a full Python project (and with one in the dustbin, how can we), thank God, the nudge-nudge, wink-wink one of them has managed to pull together enough of the energy, wit, ribald humour, and quite clever songs to conquer NYC. More devastating than a flock of Al Qaeyda hijackers, Eric Idle's usurpation of the funny bits across the Python panarama are brilliantly on target. Curry, Hyde Pearce, and the entire cast are perfect. The songs are great tunes with Eric's notoriously irreverent assaults on Jewish impressarios, British royalty, chivalric virtues, and indeed gay men enamoured with show tunes. I have not seen the play yet, and if it continues to outsell all expectations, I may have to settle for a second cast in Philadelphia, but the disc in and of itself is a must have for Idle Python fans, and for anyone who wonders whatever happened to Broadway, Mel Brooks notwithstanding.
I have left instructions for a chorus to deliver "The Song That goes Like This" at my own memorial, and you would be well-advised to do the same at your weddings, confirmations, bar and batmiztvahs, garden parties. All that's missing is a dead bishop on the landing, but then no one ever expects....
MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT
When I first bought this CD, I thought that the jokes were "amused smile" funny, not "ha-ha" funny. Then I saw the show on 4th of July weekend and it's a miracle that I left with my pants still dry. That's how funny the show itself is.
And now a critical analysis of this 'ere CD.
The songs:
1. Tuning: Not in the show but still funny. Is that Eric Idle talking?
2. Overture: Very nice.
3. Historian's Introduction: Very funny, very Pythonesque in its offhand remarks (To the North, the Anglo-Saxons, to the South, the French, to the East, nothing but Celts and some people from Scotland.)
4. Finland: In reality, a song written many years ago by the Pythons. The closest the show's gonna get to the Swedish subtitles gag. Missing from this track is the "fish slap" section. Oh, well, gotta get to the singing, right?
5. I Am Not Yet Dead: A lovely musicalization of the classic scene from the movie starting off with the Latin chant and the banging of the heads.
6. Come With Me: A perfect introduction to the show's leading lady, Sara Ramirez, who has what I consider the biggest kick-ass voice on Broadway. I haven't heard a belter like that before in my life. More on her later.
7. The Laker Girls Cheer: Eh. It's pretty good.
8. The Song That Goes Like This: An excellent, hilarious send up of the cheesy pop love duets that exist in musicals today, particularly those of Andrew Lloyd Webber. In the show, this is a spoof of "Phantom" complete with the laker girls as the candelabra statues, a boat, and a chandelier that breaks at the end.
9. He Is Not Dead Yet (Playoff): Actually occurs at the end of "I Am Not Dead Yet". Yay, they snuck in a bit from the Lumberjack Song.
10. All For One: The cheesy buddy ballad. Very good. In the show, Sir Not Appearing in this Show is a representation of Don Quixote. So it's obvious why he's not appearing in this show. 'Cause he's in the wrong one.
11. Knights of the Round Table/The Song that Goes Like This (reprise): One of my favorite songs combined with another song that goes like this. Incidentally, some lines in "Knights of the Round Table" were part of the original lyrics for the song. The reprise of "The Song That Goes Like This" is an excellent spoof of the cheesy cabaret lounge number in musicals complete with a nun and monk doing a pas de deux. Ramirez exhibits an excellent blend of Merman, Minelli, and Streisand, and maybe a little Eder (as in Linda).
12. Find Your Grail: A spoof of the cheesy inspirational pop ballads present in musicals today complete with corny vocal ad-libs (that's what I call them.)
13. Run Away: This song was severely cut down when I saw it on Broadway. All that's left is the French Taunter's verse, a jazz section replacing the Can-Can dance, and the last verse which was brought down several octaves. It was not a settling end of Act 1 for me. Pity, I liked the song. There's even an Eponine look-a-like at one point. The girl who was dressed up like her looked like Idina Menzel (obviously it wasn't)
14. The Intermission: Delivered like a true Gumby. Not in the show.
15. Historian's Introduction: Not as funny.
16. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: a send up of the old fashioned cheer up eternal optimist ballads even if it was a song that was written back in the 70s for Life of Brian, another great Python film.
17. Brave Sir Robin: Another hilarious song from the film. They even managed to sing the last line which is cut off by Eric Idle in the movie. There are many reprises of the song as well.
18. You Won't Succeed on Broadway: A send up of the ol' showbiz songs (There's No Business...Another Op'nin'...) complete with a Fiddler on the Roof parody.
19. Diva's Lament: Spoofs the part of the show where the leading lady comes on totally randomly after having diddly squat to do for half of Act Two. Sara Ramirez blew me out of the water. Just to warn anyone who hasn't seen the show, they changed the lyric "I've no Grammys, no rewards/I've no Tony Awards" to "My Tony Awards/Won't keep me out of Betty Ford's" 'cause Sara Ramirez did win the Tony for her part.
20. Where Are You: the cliched searching for love ballad. At one point in the scene, Herbert sings "And another hundred people just contracted the plague". Bet you can guess what that's from.
21. His Name Is Lancelot: Not spoofing any particular type of song in a Broadway show but spoofing The Boy From Oz definitely.
22. I'm All Alone: Another spoof. Loneliness ballad obviously. Very hilarious.
23. Twice In Every Show: A spoof of the rousing reprises of the cheesy love ballads complete with some cliched dialogue.
24. The Finale: A spoof of how the cheesy inspirational pop number is spoofed through different forms then going into pop at the end. Very rousing.
25. Always Look On the Bright Side of Life: Maybe not a spoof of how they try to get one last song stuck in your head before you leave the theatre but good nonetheless.
The Performers:
Tim Curry: Very hilarious. Excellent timing. Love the singing.
Sara Ramirez: What a voice! Not even Idina Menzel can belt one out like that.
Christian Borle: Very nice voice.
Christopher Seiber: Saw him in Into the Woods. Very good voice as well.
Hank Azaria: Not the best singer in the world but still funny. Did not see him when I saw the show. Stupid Huff.
David Hyde Pierce: He looked like the type with a hidden singing voice. It's a very good one.
Michael McGrath: Very good voice. He's got the ol' crooner voice which is perfect for Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
Steve Rosen: Must have an excellent voice. Just doesn't have a very good time to shine with it. Does do a great imitation of Terry Jones though.
All in all, it's great music but an even better show with some phenomenal talent. There are two songs left off the CD; King Arthur's song (which is really the theme sung in the Laker Girls' Cheer) and The Holy Grail which is sung after the Holy Grail is found in Row C Seat 101 and they bring up the "peasant" sitting in the seat. There's a lyric involving the person's name (at the show I saw, his name was Harvey Lucas) which obviously changes and would be difficult to record unless you sang, "Please insert name here".
Get Spamalot.
Ni! Peng! Nee-womp! Ecky-ecky-ecky-p'tang-zoop-boing-ole-biscuit barrel-naro-naro.
I saw Spamalot very early on in it's Chicago preveiws (the third ever public display of Spamalot). While some songs have been cut since then ("Burn Her" about the Witch, and "The Cow Song"), what remains is still hillariously funny.
The performances are wonderful, starting with King Arthur, played by The Rocky Horror Picture Show's Tim Curry. While his certainly isn't the biggest highlight and his role is mainly that of straight man to everything else going on (that term is used in relative terms, of course), he's the glue which holds the entire show together. Next is The Simpsons' Hank Azaria as Sir Lancelot, the head Knight Who Says "Ni" - doesn't appear on the CD as that - and the French Taunter (you know, directional farting and all that stuff). He's hillarious live, but a lot of his role isn't on the CD. Frasier's David Hyde Pierce is Sir Robin exclusivly on the CD, but also plays Brother Maynard and one of the Guards on stage.
The truly wonderful performance - live and on the CD is the Lady of the Lake, Sara Ramierz (she was also the witch and the cow when the respective songs were still included). Her ability to adapt her voice from sweet and intrancing, to mockingly sweet and intrancing, to overly jazzy and mock Liza, to gospel-ballad extrodenaire makes her lock for the Tony Award this year or any year EVER. And she is (thankfully) promently featured on the CD. Another featured show-stopper who is on the CD a lot is Christian Borle, the Historian, Not-Dead-Fred, Sir Robin's Minsterl, and Price Herbert. His diversity and the fact that he almost steals the show from the bigger stars make him a serious contender for the featured actor Tony, as well.
The score isn't amazingly overwhelming, but nice. And the lyrics are quite funny, especially songs such as "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" (you'll find out why not), "His Name is Lancelot," and "The Song That Goes Like This," the latter of which pokes fun at the Anderw Lloyd Webber ballads we've all heard WAY TOO MANY times. Also, some preexcisting Python songs have been included, namely "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," even though that was from Life of Brian, not Holy Grail.
I'm a huge Python-ite, but you don't have to be to love Monty Python's Spamalot.
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