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[0:35] Jesse: Hello, and welcome to another extra special episode of Theater in the D. I am joined by my lovely fiancée, Miranda Moffat.

[0:43] Miranda Moffat: Hello, everyone.

[0:44] Jesse: Miranda, what are we talking about today? And what did the lovely people at... Oh, God, it's ATG. ATG in Detroit. What did we have for today's offering?

[0:54] Miranda Moffat: Today, we saw Monty Python's Spamalot. Books and lyrics by Eric Idle and music by John Duprez.

[1:01] Jesse: John Duprey? John Duprez? I feel like Don Duprez. And also Eric Idle. Do you know who Eric Idle is?

[1:08] Miranda Moffat: He is one of the original Monty Python folks, is he not?

[1:11] Jesse: Yes, but if we had to line him up in a row, do you think you'd be able to pick out which one he is?

[1:16] Miranda Moffat: Um, probably not. If you tell me which knight he is, I could probably... I'll probably remember.

[1:22] Jesse: He was Sir Robin.

[1:23] Miranda Moffat: Okay, yes. He's kind of known for being the big capitalist of the group. Like, he's always the one that's, like, trying to find new ways to make money.

[1:30] Jesse: Like, as a human being?

[1:32] Miranda Moffat: Yeah, that is, like, his big contribution. And everyone was just kind of like, oh, Eric's trying to find new ways to make money off of XYZ. He was the one that kind of became, like, a character actor in films. Never really a lead, but was always, like, showing up in kids' movies. He was in Disney projects. He was in Casper. And this was kind of like, how can I squeeze more money out of Holy Grail somehow?

[1:54] Jesse: So, this musical was him and his attempt?

[1:57] Miranda Moffat: Yes. It had very little involvement from the other pythons because Graham Chapman had been dead for a minute. And John Cleese, obviously, was not involved. And all the rest of them just kind of let him do his thing. So, this is really his baby.

[2:11] Jesse: Okay, okay. And the police are there to arrest every one of the pythons for not being involved. So, I had never seen this musical. This is a wholly new experience. And to prepare you for what this could be, I did force you to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail last night.

[2:26] Miranda Moffat: Two nights ago, but yes.

[2:28] Jesse: In a typical rite of passage, I think, for all women dating heterosexual men, in addition to watching the entire Star Wars franchise at some point, I also now have been looped into watching some Monty Python things.

[2:42] Miranda Moffat: Let me be clear. I like Monty Python. Holy Grail is like my third favorite film of theirs. It's not even in my top two. It's not a big thing for me, the way it is for a lot of folks, is just what I'm trying to say.

[2:57] Jesse: It was not the big influential thing where I quote it every single day, the way that every man that drags their girlfriend to a renaissance fair, it is.

[3:05] Miranda Moffat: You did tell me that renaissance fairs are now overrun with just people cosplaying that movie.

[3:12] Jesse: Cosplaying, quoting it. But it's kind of run into the ground the same way a lot of Christmas movie quotes are just run into the ground, where it kind of loses meaning. Which kind of got me excited for this, cos I thought this would be a little different. I think, on the whole, I very much had a good time tonight. Act One strews a little too close to the source material, in my opinion.

[3:32] Miranda Moffat: I would agree.

[3:34] Jesse: I will say, right off the bat, I did not enjoy the movie. I hate to say it, cos I understand that it's a classic. I just think, as we've learned in other episodes, I have a pretty specific sense of humour that is kind of hard to tickle. So things that are meant to make me laugh and give me nothing else but don't make me laugh, I do not find them very enjoyable.

[3:56] Miranda Moffat: I will say, definitely, it wasn't all bad. There were a few nuggets, a few moments that really caught me. But, on the whole, I did fall asleep at a certain point.

[4:10] Jesse: Watching the movie.

[4:12] Miranda Moffat: However, I will say that the musical adaptation, I think, for me personally, I wouldn't say it's up there in my favourites, but I definitely think that there was more for me here than there was in the movie. I don't know if you agree.

[4:29] Jesse: I don't know if I'd agree, but maybe it's because, once again, these lines have been driven into my head so much. Just hearing them said by people that are John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, all that. It's just like hearing Shakespeare again. But when we strayed away from that, I locked in a lot more, and it kind of did its own thing, and I really enjoyed those.

[4:53] Miranda Moffat: That's kind of what I'm saying. In another twist, I think maybe this was the case with the last one we saw as well, I preferred Act 2 to Act 1. I thought that Act 1, as soon as it started, I was like, oh, this is just the movie, word for word, so I'm in for a ride of just watching something I already recently watched that I didn't like.

[5:15] Jesse: I did want to point out, they cut the one scene in the movie that you relented and said you liked.

[5:20] Miranda Moffat: I know, that was the thing.

[5:22] Jesse: Yeah, yeah, I did notice that. She likes the castle anthrax scene a lot, and everything else she kind of was not vibing with at all.

[5:31] Miranda Moffat: I think for me, watching the movie, I was just like, oh, finally, some women.

[5:35] Jesse: Well, this also introduces a woman character in The Lady of the Lake, and she's great. And that's kind of what my overall feeling was, was the parts that were word for word, the movie, were obviously not my favorite because I didn't really love the movie. But when it started to stray, and it started to do its own thing, is when I really, really started to like it.

[5:54] Miranda Moffat: And that's why I think Act 2 was my favorite of the two, because it was the one that had its own most uniqueness, and its most sort of differences from the original source material.

[6:04] Jesse: I am going to reckon, I don't think I've heard this specifically, but I think that my headcanon is, Eric Idle sat down in a Broadway theater in 2001, and watched Mel Brooks make The Producers, and win thousands of awards, won all the awards, and said, I can do that, and I want to do that. And that feels very much like watching, what if Monty Python bought The Producers?

[6:29] Miranda Moffat: I would agree, especially, I don't know if we're allowed to say specific acts in the musical, but like the part where they are, they're talking to the Knights of Me, and they now have to create a Broadway musical, and then they start looking for Jews, because you can't have a successful Broadway musical without Jewish people. I thought that was, that is when the humor really started to hit me, and I think when it had, like I said, when it started to stray away from the original source material, and also when it had more specific humor, is the things that I like.

[7:09] Jesse: So when they mention, for example, Dietrich Furs, because we're in Detroit, which if you are unfamiliar, is like a brand of, it's like a store that has been in the city since the 1800s, I think, selling fur coats. It's just about to close down, too.

[7:24] Miranda Moffat: It's just about to close down, after being open for 100 plus years. So them mentioning Dietrich Furs.

[7:30] Jesse: The audience was, people were leaving the audience, and they're still just talking about the Dietrich Furs moment.

[7:36] Miranda Moffat: Yes. So I think, for me, the specificity of the humor that was added, as well as adding in, and that's really why I think things like the movie, like the Monty Python movie, and why things like Airplane, while I can generally respect and appreciate that they are, were like the peak of comedy, maybe in their times. I don't know. Is that an accurate representation?

[7:59] Jesse: I think so, right. More comedic in their times. That some of this humor just doesn't hit the same, because the references are not going to be the same for a modern audience. So bringing the production of Spamalot into the modern day, with the more modern references, references to modern songs, and jukebox musicals, and the references to Wicked, and stuff like that.

[8:19] Miranda Moffat: They sang K-pop demon hunters.

[8:21] Jesse: That's what I'm saying. The specificity of those things, I particularly enjoyed. And I assume that they choose a different sort of, like different specific references per where they are performing, which I think is really interesting.

[8:34] Miranda Moffat: I was really worried that this was going to be another poorly designed kind of, you know, we're going to have a screen, and that is our set. No, this had really good sets that changed often, and I was impressed by it. The production value was on stage quite a bit.

[8:46] Jesse: Once again, that first act where it's just kind of very hewing, very close to the movie, I was really, I was struggling with it. But as soon as Act 2 starts, I had worries, because even leaving the show, I still think the best song in the entire production is Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which is not, it's from Life of Brian, the second Monty Python movie. And still, that's the only one anyone's humming, and it is also the encore number, where they make everyone sing along.

[9:18] Miranda Moffat: The big emotion I felt was watching boomers, baby boomers, and their kids all together kind of singing along. I saw 80-year-old women and men together singing this song, and I just realized, oh yeah, this movie is 53 fucking years old.

[9:33] Jesse: That's what I'm saying. It's, you know, I respect that even if it's not my favorite thing in the world, that's because it's probably not entirely for me. But I think the good thing about the musical is that it does bring in elements that are for the original audience, and also now updating pieces of it to be more moderate. Those are the things that I really enjoyed about it.

[9:54] Miranda Moffat: And I do have to note, if anybody has listened to this podcast before, they know that Jesse has a particular disdain for prolonged dance numbers in a musical, which, if that is not your thing, this is not your musical.

[10:10] Jesse: I, for one, don't mind a prolonged musical number. I will say, even in my opinion, they were a little bit too long. Every number got a dance break. It was a little bit too much of it for me, even. And you could kind of feel a little bit. This is always the case when you're adapting, I think, a movie to a stage musical. You can feel that the timing and the placing things in certain areas, like the pacing is a little bit different, and you could tell that they're trying to get to their run time by adding in a few too many dance numbers.

[10:42] Miranda Moffat: They're still very fun and enjoyable, though.

[10:44] Jesse: Yeah, and the ensemble's doing great work and all that. I do want to highlight, this is based on the most recent revival that starred Alex Brightman, James Monroe Iglehart, Ethan Slater, and a bunch of those folks. And it did just feel like, man, we really did get folks that look insane.

[11:01] Jesse: I don't know how they found clones of everyone. But like the gentleman that played Lance looked just like Alex Brightman. And the gentleman that played... Oh gosh, what's, what's, uh, Herbert looks exactly like Ethan Slater. And I was just like, mmm, you make these clones in a lab for the tours? That... I have no context for that because I have not seen that production. I know those names. I know what their faces look like.

[11:28] Jesse: Yeah, I mean, obviously, as always, the cast and the ensemble were really putting in the work. Especially, I mean, I guess I couldn't see the faces entirely well. But the gentleman that played, uh, Lancelot. And this made me realize just how many roles John Cleese had in the movie. I think, I think there were maybe some things I didn't realize were him while I was watching the movie. And I'm like, oh, Lancelot, aka John Cleese's character, does all of these things. He is the Frenchman now, okay. So, props, props to them. And the, um, Tim, Tim guy in Waddles. Um, oh gosh. There are several things.

[12:06] Jesse: He's all over that movie. Yeah, there's a lot, he was a lot of the characters. Now, I gotta say, Eric Idle, I don't love his songwriting most of the time. I think he's great. It's like if you asked Weird Al to write a musical. He's great for quick parody numbers where they get a joke in and they get out quick. There's like three songs where I think he really had a good idea behind the number. And then the rest of it is just like, yeah, let's sing for a bit.

[12:29] Miranda: Yeah, and that's, I would say if there's any kind of weaknesses of this, of the musical itself, it would be that. That the, you're right, the things that people are humming are not really the actual songs.

[12:37] Jesse: They're humming always on the bright side of life.

[12:44] Miranda: Yes, they're not the actual songs from the show. And it is in that way that I feel generally when I watch musicals that are adapting a movie. Sometimes they do fall into the trap of, you know, when the music starts, it feels like we're taking ourselves out of the action. As opposed to the music being relevant to us telling the story in the way that a musical should be in my opinion. So it does kind of fall into that trap a little bit for me.

[13:07] Jesse: I see what you mean. I'm sorry to interrupt, but it does make me appreciate what Mel Brooks did with The Producers. Where I truly believe, structurally, it works better as a musical than it did a film originally. And the songs push it forward so much better.

[13:21] Miranda: That's always the best thing when, like, you don't expect an adaptation of a thing to improve upon the source material. And it does. Because I feel like nine times out of ten, that is not the case. And you're just adapting something that was already kind of in its perfect form. So I always love to see it when that happens.

[13:37] Jesse: But I will say, like, as I mentioned before, even if I don't think it's a perfect adaptation, I think I probably enjoyed Spamalot more than I did the movie itself. Which is, like, maybe heresy? I don't know.

[13:49] Miranda: No, no. It's also much more American-tailored. Like, this is much more for an American taste.

[13:56] Jesse: An American, broader style of humor.

[13:58] Miranda: Yes. Yes.

[14:00] Jesse: Come here and give me exactly what I want in my disgusting American taste. That's kind of what Eric Idle does. Eric Idle is a showman that wants to impress an audience. And he really wants to impress Americans.

[14:15] Miranda: Well, good on you. Good on you.

[14:17] Jesse: Whereas you got folks like Terry Gilliam, who is an American. I don't think he's ever impressed an American a day in his life.

[14:24] Miranda: Now, Jesse, was there any scene, like, specifically that you saw in the movie and liked better on stage? Or a scene that you liked better in the movie?

[14:30] Jesse: I mean, like, obviously the scene that they did not include. Which I was like, really? Really, you guys? You did everything else? Except for the one singular one that got a chuckle out of me while I watched the movie. That was a little disappointing. So I'm sad it wasn't in there.

[14:49] Miranda: But, um...

[14:50] Jesse: I know it wasn't the airspeed velocity of swallows.

[14:54] Miranda: You fucking hated that bit both times it was happening?

[14:57] Jesse: Yes, I did. Did you just feel the anger bubbling inside you?

[15:01] Miranda: Watching the movie made me feel like, is this where Seth MacFarlane came up with those bits in Family Guy where it just goes on way, way, way too long and you're waiting for it to stop?

[15:11] Jesse: Yeah. Those things I find desperately annoying. So did not love that in either version.

[15:17] Miranda: But I will say, pretty much like I was saying before, every scene that strayed away from the original was probably better to me than what was in the movie. Like I said, the song number. Instead of having to find extra shrubbery from the Knights of Nii, now they are having to put on a Broadway show. And that whole song number was just absolutely hilarious.

[15:41] Jesse: You and I, who were pretty stone-faced for Act 1, were actively laughing very hard in our chairs. The Knights of Nii scene, which I also very much hated in the movie, I thought was hilarious in the musical because they did that whole bit about Dietrich Furs and Little Caesar's Pizza. They were pulling out the references. I thought that was funny.

[16:06] Miranda: I actually really enjoyed that. That was probably the hardest I laughed the whole time because, as I said, there is a song number which I feel like I want to pull out what the actual name of the song is so people don't just think that I'm making something up. What is the song number? Hold on, hold on, hold on.

[16:22] Jesse: You Won't Succeed on Broadway, yes.

[16:24] Miranda: They're basically singing a song about asking Jewish people to be involved a la Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler. Should I really go on on Broadway?

[16:33] Jesse: Sure. Let me finish what I thought and then you should go on your rant.

[16:37] Miranda: I thought that that was absolutely hilarious and it ended up being essentially an unintentional callback because they have that, like Jesse was mentioning, the bit at the end where they call the peasant up on stage, who is sitting in a specific seat number that finds the Holy Grail. And this woman from the audience came on stage and she said her name was something Goodman and then she said Shelly Goodman and they were giving her this award for being the best peasant and then she went, also, I'm a Jew. And everybody lost their shit because that's a big part of Act Two basically is them on a quest for finding Jewish people to be involved in their Broadway musical. So that stuff was, I think, actively very funny to me.

[17:21] Jesse: Also, I still want you to go on your rant. I fell asleep at the end of the movie when we were watching it so I don't really remember exactly what happened but I kind of remember that everybody died and it wasn't satisfying. Is that correct?

[17:35] Miranda: It has like, it doesn't...

[17:37] Jesse: Yes, they didn't have...

[17:39] Miranda: Oh yeah, that was probably one of the only jokes that actually got me in the movie also like that. And the two things that I actually liked were the only things that weren't in the musical which is hilarious. That whole thing with the historian and the investigator and him dying. That was funny. But it was completely unsatisfying and they never find it, right? But at least the musical and again, this is me, I love a conclusion. Jussie's always like, ah yeah leave it open ended. I love not knowing and being sad.

[18:05] Jesse: And I'm like no, give me the ending exactly as it's supposed to be so I don't have to guess and I know what it's supposed to be and I love that. I love a happy ending and it gave it to me so that made me very happy.

[18:19] Miranda: Okay, now go on your rant about that song number. You'll never succeed on Broadway.

[18:23] Jesse: So that is hiding the joke of the song, which the chorus is really just like, that is the chorus song. It is. That is a trend that was started by the set by the chorus because they had a song that the chorus hits and then they were like, why is no one fucking laughing at this joke? It's a good reveal, it's a funny joke because in the playbills, the song was titled Kiss and Ass and now they're like, well we're going to change the title of the song to like the most important thing and that's because now the trend is like hiding puns that are in the chorus.

[18:48] Miranda: That's why that is, um, something that they probably should have been doing anyway, I'm not going to lie. Like, why would you give away the punchline?

[18:56] Jesse: Yes.

[18:58] Miranda: I enjoyed a lot of this. Cast is great. If you like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, like a lot, you're in. And while we were kind of middling on Act 1, um, everyone else in the audience they were loving.

[19:10] Jesse: Yeah, if you enjoy the movie, you're going to enjoy the musical because it's pretty close most of the time and if not to the page, to the essence of the movie. But I think if you also are not particularly a fan of the movie like I am, there is also something for you in it.

[19:26] Miranda: Yeah, and I think that says a lot for everyone. I don't even think it's barely for fun, being honest. I love Life of Brian. That's the one I really like. Every other one, I'm just kind of, yeah, that one's fine, I get it. And that's why I always look at the bright side of life is the one, the song that gives me the most like, oh, yeah, I feel something. But, you know, it doesn't work as well if everyone's not crucified and trying to sing about a dollar.

[19:46] Jesse: There you go. What is your overall thoughts on Spamalot?

[19:48] Miranda: I think my overall thoughts on Spamalot are, even though it didn't include the only two things about the movie that I actively liked, I did enjoy it more than the movie itself just because I think it's easier to like. Like you said, it's a little bit more geared towards a specific sense of humor and American sensibilities.

[20:06] Jesse: So, I think I appreciated it in general more than the movie, which, you know, don't be mad at me. I'm sorry.

[20:14] Miranda: But yeah, I would say my cheese rating is probably like a smoked Gouda cheese because it's very, very rich and fatty and you should only enjoy it every once in a while, probably. But it's still amazingly delicious and when you finally get it, it's awesome.

[20:32] Jesse: Fair enough, and I am giving a Spam fan eggs and Spam egg fan, not a Spam fan.

[20:36] Miranda: Is that a reference to Spam?

[20:38] Jesse: That is a reference to... So they have a show, like an SNL style show and they sing a song about Spam and that's where the title Spamalot comes from.

[20:46] Miranda: Nerd.

[20:48] Jesse: I've got like four big references that you know.

[20:52] Miranda: Anyway, thank you to Broadway in Detroit or I guess, what's it called now? ATG. Thank you to ATG for having us and allowing us to have this experience and share it with all of you. Next, we will be covering Phantom of the Opera.

[21:06] Jesse: No, is it?

[21:08] Miranda: I don't think so. According to the playbill, that's what they've got playing.

[21:12] Jesse: I love Kinky Boots. I'm excited. It's like an all-timer show I listen to.

[21:16] Miranda: Well, maybe Kinky Boots, but definitely Phantom of the Opera, sometime in February. So tune in next time.

[21:24] Jesse: Just watch your lips and whistle that's the key.

[21:28] Miranda: And always look on the bright side of life.

[21:36] ♪ Musical number: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" — performed by Jesse and Miranda ♪