Monty Python And The Holy Grail

You won’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jews!

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SpamalotI spent most of the first part of my morning in tears today — because I couldn’t stop laughing. Last night I noticed that the iTunes Music Store had the Broadway cast soundtrack to Spamalot. Of course, that was a no-brainer impulse buy.

So far I’ve only listened to it once straight through, and that was while working, so I didn’t catch quite everything, but it’s hilarious.

The show, of course, is “(lovingly) ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” and much of the best-loved elements from the movie are in the show, along with a few other bits and pieces from the Python canon (including ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life‘, and even the fish slapping dance).

Some of the best parts that I’ve found so far, though, are lampooning Broadway itself, with two obvious standout tracks.

The first is ‘You Won’t Succeed on Broadway‘, which points out that there’s no way for any show to be a hit unless there’s a Jew in the story. It all starts (as I’ve found thanks to a few reviews) after Arthur and his knights are given a task by the mighty Knights of Ni: they must open a hit Broadway show.

Arthur: Have you heard of this…’Broadway?’

Robin: Yes sir, but we don’t stand a chance there.

Arthur: Why not?

Robin: Because! Broadway is a very special place, filled with very special people. People who can sing, and dance — often at the same time! They are a different people, a multitalented people, a people who need people, and who are in many ways the luckiest people in the world. I’m sorry sire. We don’t have a chance.

Arthur: But why?

Robin: Well…let me put it like this…

In any great adventure
if you don’t want to lose,
Victory depends upon
the people that you choose.
So listen Arthur, darling,
closely to this news —
We won’t succeed on Broadway
if we don’t have any Jews!

The second, and so far my favorite piece from the soundtrack, is ‘The Song that Goes Like This,’ a deliciously perfect sendup of the über-schmaltzy headlining track in far too many modern Broadway shows, most notoriously those of Andrew Lloyd Webber (apparently, this song is sung in a boat surrounded by candles as a chandelier descends from the ceiling…sound familiar to anyone?).

Lancelot: Once in every show,
there comes a song like this,
it starts off nice and slow,
and ends up with a kiss.
Oh, well. Here’s the song
that goes like this.
Where is it? Where? Where?

Lady of the Lake: A sentimental song,
it casts a magic spell,
They only hum along,
we’ll overact like hell.
Oh this! Is the song
that goes like this.

Both: Yes it is. / Yes it is! / Yes it is! / Oh yes it is!

Lancelot: Now we can go straight
into the middle eight,
a bridge
that is too far for me.

Lady of the Lake: I’ll sing it in your face,
while we both embrace.

Both: And then!
We change the key!

And it just goes on…it’s wonderful.

Pick it up from the iTMS, or if you’re partial to physical media, from Amazon. It’s well worth adding to your collection.

iTunes “Diva’s Lament (What Ever Happened to My Part?)” by Ramirez, Sara from the album Spamalot (Original Broadway Cast) (2005, 2:32).

For a wonderfully surreal time

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…pop in the new Monty Python and the Holy Grail DVD, set the audio track to French (or maybe just mute it if you actually speak French), and turn on the ‘subtitles for people who hate the film.’

I watched about half an hour of the movie like this last night, and kept bouncing between laughing and just staring at the screen in bewildered amazement. I wasn’t sure what people meant when they mentioned that the ‘subtitles for people who hate the film’ were made up of text from Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV, Part II‘ — I thought they’d just run the text of the play underneath the Holy Grail. However, they’ve actually grabbed lines from Henry IV that are as close as they can be to the actual wording and intent of the lines in the Holy Grail that they’re replacing, and the end effect is truly, wonderfully bizarre. Some scenes don’t quite work, but in others, the correlation between what’s happening onscreen and what the subtitles are saying is freakishly accurrate.

I think this subtitle track may be one of my favorite features on the disc — probably not the one I’ll visit most often, but in terms of the sheer twisted humor of the idea (and the work it must have taken to assemble the track), I think it’s absolutely amazing.