Goodness gracious me: Sanjeev Bhaskar has been cast in Eric Idle's spoof musical Spamalot, but he leaves one wondering how this King Arthur ever mustered the oomph to draw his sword from the stone. Seeing Spamalot for the first time, I marvel at the thin year on Broadway that must have led to its three Tony Awards. Perhaps it was redeemed by charismatic lead performances (Tim Curry, say). It does not get one here: Bhaskar is so unauthoritative, he's practically hiding under the Round Table.
This threadbare musical is essentially a collection of Python sketches, often adrift from their context, and strung together around the gnawed skeleton of a quest for the Holy Grail. It seems aeons out of date, perhaps because it behaves as if being gay were inherently hilarious and women existed to leg-kick in lingerie. The famous "You won't succeed in the West End/ If you don't have any Jews" number is just bizarre, because quite untrue. This production is very pleased with its own irreverence, yet coy when it comes to the Asian persuasion of its king.
There are isolated pleasures: some likably groansome wordplay, a performance of relish from Jake Nightingale as the French Taunter ("I fart in your general direction"), and Arthur's not-so-solo number I'm All Alone, which plays with the invisibility of servants to kings. Mind you, this king is pretty invisible - or at least we wish he were, especially when he ungallantly suggests that a member of the audience, dragged on stage from row D, has wet herself. This Spamalot, as the Pythons might have put it, is an ex-parrot.
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