Monty Python movie opens to rave reviews

Spamalot, the eagerly awaited musical adaptation of the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, opened last night on Broadway to rave reviews and a star-studded audience.

Directed by Mike Nichols, the show stars Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Eric Idle, one of the original members of the Python comedy troupe, wrote the script and co-wrote the music and lyrics.

“I always wanted to do a musical,” Idle said. “We were looking for a suitable subject.” Nichols, who directed the award winning film Closer, said he was dragged into the project, but was glad he was. “I never wanted to do another musical, but they trapped me,” he said.

“We had a reading and I laughed my arse off.”

Tim Curry plays a jolly King Arthur, and Hank Azaria – better known as the voice of Moe in The Simpsons – plays a metrosexual Lancelot and sneering Frenchman.

Set designs, based on Python original sketches, have been adapted by newcomer Tim Hatley, who has “captured the special wit of Terry Gilliam’s animated drawings”, according to New York Daily News critic Howard Kissel.

Joining Idle on the red carpet at the Shubert Theatre last night were a host of celebrities and fellow Pythons John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam.

Among the stars in the audience were Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Candace Bergen, David Bowie and wife Iman, and Carly Simon.

After the performance, the Pythons gathered together with an urn representing Graham Chapman, the original Python member who died in 1989.

New York Post theatre critic Clive Barnes called Spamalot “bloody fantastic” and said: “This is one of those Broadway shows of shows. Steal a ticket, even if you have to get a killer rabbit to help.”