What Happens in Camelot Stays in Camelot

If you are a Pythoniac and live in Saint Plotniko, you must go see Monty Python's Spamalot, which opened last night at the Golden Gate Theater. It's not the opera, y'know? You can read the San Francisco Theater Blog review HERE, but you are going to laugh so hard you might want to bring a diaper.

The Great Ducknik laughed a LOT, and that's saying something from someone who doesn't usually guffaw when the Frenchman says "I fffart een your zheneral direczhun!" This, of course, cracks up Plotnik with all resulting drool.

It's a full-scale Broadway production, with all-out marketing of Python geegaws and people standing in line wearing moose heads.




And last night, at the close, Eric Idle himself, with composer John Du Prez, came onto stage as the audience stood to cheer.



The Great Plotnik sees lots and lots of theater and he loves it all (with the occasional exception), but most of the time budgets are limited or at least restrained. Spamalot isn't going to have any trouble selling tickets, so they're spending it on production. True, the live orchestra is in Modernist Mode, meaning one violinist and a Kurzweil synthesizer to fatten up her sound, but that Kurzweil means they don't have to hire a dozen string players -- and there are three synthesizers utilized, to amplify the brass and winds as well. It's worth it -- we get to have live symphonic music and, you can trust Plotnik, it makes all the difference in the world.