Spamalot, One-Eyed Man Productions, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre

Eric Idle's loving ripoff/financial brand extension of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" has been seen a couple of times in Canberra before, most memorably in theatre lore as "that show where Max Gambale Stabbed Dave Smith By Mistake".  It's quite a fun piece - yes, to a certain extent, it is a weird case of watching a covers band do all your favourite bits of the movie in a slightly rearranged form, but much of the rearrangement (at least in act one) serves to tie together the plot of a film that, fun though it is, does play a bit as a series of sketches.

And this production brings with it a good mix of the epic-and-the-micro-budget emulating some of the spirit of Python, with a cast of 8 playing on a deliberately-reduced stage, with much of the stage magic done very much with the strings showing and the stage manager popping up to help out. There's all kinds of fun in the performances, from Craemer Crain's imperious King Arthur, his loyal servant/horse Patsy (Amy Hack), all kinds of odd service from Blake Appelqvist (with several silly voices and some equally silly dancing), Abe Mitchell (going from bloodthirsty to weirdness with a side order in eccentric),  Rob Johnston (from stoic historian to romantic prince Herbert, via some silly miming), Marty Alix (largely the wimpy Sir Robin but also popping up in odd spots) and Jane Watt (nominally the flatulent Sir Bedevere but with plenty of her own side roles). Plus there's special guest Diva Josie Lane to power through the power ballads, nominally connected to the plot but often off in her own show.

This does suffer a bit from the "runs out of invention a bit in act two" (to a certain extent, once the knights split off into their own section plots, it becomes a random collection of good-bits-from-the-movie-then-finale), there's a lyric substitution in one of the second act songs that doesn't really work (the original lyric is very Broadway-centric, but this one's not as much fun), and in general the staging doesn't quite have the creativeness that the first act does (where a simple set turns out to have a bunch of bonus surprises). There's also occasionally a few cases of over-telegraphing the joke (the staging of "I'm all alone" foregrounds Patsy earlier than it should if the audience is going to find the responses funny). In short, of the two Hayes-theatre-tours that came through Canberra and its surrounds, this is probably the not-quite-as-good-one, but it's still pretty fun.