And now for something completely difficult ... Monty Python

And now for something completely difficult ...

Three decades after the Monty Python team made the silliest film ever, it's been reborn as a hit musical. And it's even got the killer rabbit! As Spamalot prepares to open in London, Eric Idle tells Dave Eggers why this was something he had to get right

Wednesday September 13, 2006
The Guardian


Its colour reminds one of lightly tanned Caucasian flesh, or putty. Its foundation is teak, stained luxuriously. Its body is segmented, much in the way of certain insects, or most couches. In fact, it resembles in many ways a small modular love seat, or a praying mantis. On its upper extremities rests a modest matching pillow, rectangular and leather-enclosed, awaiting a human head. It is a comfortable-seeming thing, flexible without being adjustable, giving without being pliant.
"This is the chair," Eric Idle said. Almost two years ago, on a bright October day in Los Angeles, Idle stood above the chair, looking down on it. The chair was empty because Idle was standing.

"Yes, this is the one," Idle reiterated. This was the chair in which the first pages, and the pages in the middle, and, later on, the last pages of Spamalot, the musical-comedy adaptation of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, were written.

Above both Idle and the chair, questions hovered. Was Idle anxious? Nervous? Sick to his stomach? After all, in a few days he would fly to New York, where rehearsals of Spamalot - an $11m (£6m) production starring Hank Azaria (of The Simpsons and Huff), Tim Curry (of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and David Hyde Pierce (the Emmy-winning co-star of Frasier) - were to begin, under the guidance of Mike Nichols, director of The Graduate and winner of Tonys, Oscars and Emmys. Was Idle wishing he were working with a more experienced cast, a more seasoned director? The musical would begin previews in Chicago on December 21, and move to Broadway in February. That much was certain. But the unknowns persisted. Would Broadway audiences take to the Pythons' particular brand of humour? Would they be able to understand all the words, if spoken with accents - one of them French? And, perhaps most important: could a low-budget film, wherein King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table pretend to ride horses with the aid of pages knocking coconuts together, be adapted for the stage, 30 years later, with the world at war?
Idle looked at the chair, but on that day the chair offered no answers.

Now it is 2006, and much has changed, though more has not changed. That is, more things have remained the same than have changed. Or maybe it's 50:50, in terms of the relationship between the changed and the unchanged. On the one hand, all of our lives, particularly in Britain and America, are far more fraught with danger and paranoia than two years ago. On the other hand, the war mentioned above, surprisingly enough given such planning, is still going on, and is going badly. Questions about the conflict linger, but thankfully, many of the questions posed to Idle and his chair two years ago have now been answered. We now know that Broadway audiences did, in fact, take to the musical adaptation of possibly the silliest film ever made, so much so that the show has been sold out for two years running and Spamalot won six or 12 Tonys and some other awards with names less Italian. There is a touring version currently in Toronto; in March it will open in Las Vegas; and next autumn in Australia.

In a few weeks, the musical will burst forth in London, and Idle, bathing in accolades and cash, was not nervous. How will British audiences react, he was asked, to this musical conceived in Los Angeles and staged in New York?

"I think they will laugh," he says.

It is difficult to know exactly what Idle means, but for the sake of argument, let's take him at his word. Perhaps he means just that: that people will laugh. It seems likely enough. After all, Idle's confidence in the show has been steady since its conception. "I knew it was funny and therefore virtually unstoppable but I never foresaw a Tony for best musical or such a worldwide hit. I did know, of course, that through box-office grosses or some kind of sexual harassment lawsuit, I would be rich."

Let's rewind a bit. Spamalot is indeed unstoppable, so much so that it has already been banned in Malaysia, where there had been no plans to stage it. It is a juggernaut and a phenomenon and even, some say, an event. To understand it better, though, one must observe its creator in his home, and to do so, we should return to October of 2004, to Los Angeles, a part of California known for its roads and stores accessible by road.