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REVIEW: Monty Python's Spamalot, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, until Saturday.
The dismembered knight who insists it's only a scratch, the dastardly Frenchies blowing raspberries from their ramparts, the plague victim who insists he's not dead yet...
They're all there and how lovely it is to have them back, the greatest moments from Monty Python And The Holy Grail repackaged and regurgitated in Eric Idle's musical version.
The other Pythons were reportedly nonplussed by Idle's creation, feeling it added little that was new. The truth is that it didn't need to. There was silliness enough in the film - and it is beautifully recreated by a top cast inicluding Marcus Brigstocke as King Arthur, Hayley Tamaddon as Lady of the Lake and Todd Carty as Patsy.
Other classic sketches are referenced; and there are even a couple of delightful mickey-takes of the world of musicals and the truly-awful songs that some of them throw up.
It's funny. It really is.
Amd there's an infectious sense that the cast are enjoying it all as much as we are - just as they should be given the sheer quality of those great scenes on offer.
The film version - like so much of Python - was occasionally bogged down by bits that didn't work, but they've been discarded here on a night which celebrates that wonderful mix of invention and pure battiness which marked Python at its best.
Phil Hewitt
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Weather for Chichester
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 3 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: South
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Cloudy
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