Spamalot

Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin

Many of the gags, plots, and songs in the 2005 musical Monty Python's Spamalot are "lovingly ripped-off" from the well-loved 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, encouraging a nostalgic familiarity for an audience pepped to sing along with Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, for example, actually from The Life of Brianbut which is woven into the musical's fabric and also provides the encore. However, the over-exploitation of the popular source material seems a missed opportunity. The best parts of Spamalot are actually the genuinely original elements, particularly the way in which Eric Idle and John Du Prez's lyrics and score parodies the conventions of musical theatre.

In songs like Find Your Grailand The Diva's Lament, the sentimental excesses of Rogers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber are satirised both melodically and structurally.

Thus in The Song That Goes Like This, the lyrics "once in every show/ there comes a song like this/ it starts out very low/ and ends up with a kiss" are set to the predictable rising cadence and key changes of the manipulative centrepiece of the tragic musical score.

In this touring production, however, the sophistication of Spamalot’s musical tribute is lost amidst Dean Austin’s over-cooked musical direction. With the monotone reverberations of microphones and the synthesised mediation of the live orchestra, there is no nuance to the performances at all.

As the Lady of the Lake, Jodie Prenger, whose incredibly powerful voice needs no help with projection, becomes less parodic than a grotesque cartoon. Phill Jupitus, meanwhile, brings the well-travelled nonchalance of his television persona to his characterisation of King Arthur, but in this transference to the stage, he just looks bored.

It is a hard to make the satire bite when there is no sincerity to the performances. (Exceptions must be made for Todd Carty as the put-upon Patsy and Graham MacDuff as the sexually-confused Lancelot.)

No-one would ever use the word subtle to describe Monty Python’s particular blend of absurdist humour and physical comedy, but from the primary-coloured paper-cut-out set to the crude characterisations of a stripped-back ensemble, Spamalot gives us Monty Python without the wit or shambolic charm of the original source material, and ultimately seems more cynical than genuinely silly.

Runs until Saturday