What the hell I am doing slaving over a keyboard at 3am trying to find the right words to express what I have just seen on stage five hours ago? Was it Ibsen? Was it Shakespeare? Was it the collected works of Arthur ‘two sheds’ Jackson turned into a musical? No it was some nonsensical drivel called Spamalot! It’ll never catch on. It’s far too silly. Oh why do I bother even trying? I never wanted to be a theatre critic anyway. Always having to say nice things, ignore things that go wrong including dodgy microphones and hand out those shiny gold stars. I am better than that! I am. I always wanted to be (wait for it) a lumberjack! The fir. The larch. The mighty Scots pine! The smell of fresh cut timber! The crash of mighty trees. Floating down the mighty rivers of British Columbia – leaping from tree to tree with my best girl by my side we’d sing sing sing!

I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay.
I sleep all night and I work all day.

He’s a lumberjack, and he’s okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.

I cut down trees. I eat my lunch.
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I go shoppin’
And have buttered scones for tea.

Right stop! Stop it! Put down that axe. Stop right now! This is getting very silly. You are not a lumberjack and never have been Philip. Get on and write your damn review. And so … now for something completely different… a theatrical review written by dancing hamsters in ladies undies eating Spam.

Spamalot, the hit Monty Python comedy musical written by Eric Idle and John Du Prez currently resides at Trent College (May Hall) Long Eaton until Saturday 3rd June. It is a fun, politically incorrect romp heavily influenced by Python’s film ‘Monty Python and The Holy Grail’ graced with extra campness and an expensive forest in the theatrical mix. Plus naughty French people who fart in our general direction. Make it your quest to book tickets for this hilarious show by Encore Performing Arts now!

Directed by Adam Guest and assistant director Sascha Cornelius with bonkers choreography by Jordan Neary, Spamalot tells the tale of King Arthur of The Britons (Kev Chatten) and his dopey assistant Patsy (Jack Readyhoof) gathering together a group of knights to go on a quest to find the vessel of the Holy Grail. The quest is instigated by the beautiful Lady of the Lake played and sung wonderfully well by Charlotte Howarth. Howarth has the perfect mix of terrific singing voice and comedy Her songs are some of the highlights of the show, in particular the Diva’s Lament.

King Arthur’s role is 98% comedy based and Kev Chatten comes into his own with some perfect comic timing and some brilliant cod bravery and herring do. But will he find the Grail? Will he overcome the obstacles along the way? Will he sing the right notes in the right order? Will he ever stop saying sorry to God? Will he start doing silly walks? Will you buy some bloody show tickets and go and find out? All I can reveal is that Chatten is superbly brilliant as King Arthur of The Britons and like the rest of the cast his acting is a laugh a minute. In a good way. And his singing is the sort of legendary stuff that sends real men in tights out on crusades.

Jack Readyhoof wows the audience as the sympathetic Patsy and is clearly a gifted actor, singer and all round performer. He has energy in abundance and the heart glows each time he appears. Readyhoof really nails the deadpan look and gestures of the comedy foil. And he is a whizz at clacking the coconut shells together. Seriously – you would think he is actually riding a horse.

Plenty of surreal Pythonesque silliness prevails throughout this show and fans who haven’t seen it will be delighted to see a vision of Eric Idle as God talking to King Arthur and his brave knights. All the character and situation elements from the film are here on stage, well most of them. We have the knights who say “ni”; the black knight (Kheenan Jones) who gets chopped to bits by King Arthur but won’t give up; the singing and dancing Knights of the Round Table strutting their stuff; the French Knights farting in the King’s direction and a scary soothsayer called Tim (Martin Holtom) and the deadly rabbit of Antioch. You don’t want to mess with that f*cker I can tell you. It may look cute but it will tear your head off in a flash.

Other roles of equal daftness are played by Matt McAuley (Brother Maynard), Rob Charles (Sir Belvedere), Arden-Caspar Jennison (Not Dead Fred), Megan Fennell (Chief Knight of Ni), Keli Wain (Wandering Minstrel), and Natalie Webster as a very amusing French Taunter. There is a very busy (and silly) ensemble who also whip up a storm on stage as they morph into an endless procession of characters.

As the lyrics go “ If life seems jolly rotten, there’s something you’ve forgotten and that’s to laugh and dance and smile and sing…” and looking on that ‘bright side of life’ is what this show is all about and it has a very colourful rainbow umbrellas sequence that is worth the ticket price alone. The sets aren’t half bad either. And the costumes. Yes there are costumes aplenty and they are all jolly splendid. And props. Indeed, there are lots of props including a big tin of Spam and a fine shrubbery. Yes that’s enough of that nonsense. Get on with it Lowe.

Spamalot’s Songs include ‘Fisch Schlapping Song’, ‘The Song That Goes Like This’ (terrifically performed by Matt Charlton as Sir Dennis Galahad and Charlotte Howarth belting for all her worth as Lady of the Lake). Then there’s ‘Camelot’ and ‘Find Your Grail’ both given full vocal and physical welly by the full Encore company.

The most looked forward to and most famous song – lovingly filched from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian – is ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’ sung by Jack Readyhoof in fine vocal form. And you are allowed to join in on the whistling. Tim Yearsely (musical director) and his accomplished live band are musically excellent and join in with the total silliness of the piece.

Three other highlights of this show are the Diva’s Lament and the very funny scene in Prince Herbert’s castle tower with a gloriously camp Jarrod Makin as the ‘soon to be wed’ Prince Herbert who only wants to sing musical theatre songs preferably in a falsetto voice. But please – nothing by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Stuart Bull is hilarious as a newly realised gay Sir Lancelot and has the audience weeping with laughter in his song and dance scene featuring the jaunty Cococabana influenced song ‘His Name is Lancelot’. Jake Gelernter steals the show in the second half as the not-so-brave Sir Robin. Martin Holtom is wonderfully serious faced and earnestly voiced as the show’s historian/narrator.

This amateur production of Spamalot is a superb night’s entertainment (or is that knights’ entertainment?) which has the audience in stitches pretty much for the whole show. It even includes (spoiler alert) some audience participation and you are not obliged to eat any Spam in the interval but this reviewer does because he loves it. He could eat it day and night. “Wonderful Spam! Marvellous Spam! Spam and chips, eggs and spam, I could eat Spam a lot”. Maybe this reviewer is showing his age now. Exit stage left and don’t trip over the shrubbery!

Photo credit for Spamalot promotional portraits: Chris Clarke