Monty's flying on Broadway
So successful is Spamalot, the musical version of Monty Python which opened in New York this week, that it is already being hotly tipped to win this year's Tony award for best musical.
It is one of the biggest-selling shows in Broadway history, and every day people desperate for a ticket are queuing round the block. The musical, based on Monty Python And The Holy Grail, is taking the Big Apple by storm - even with a chorus line of killer rabbits, flatulent Frenchmen and one legless knight.
Such is the buzz that British producers and owners are believed to be in New York already to check out a possible transfer to London.Written by Eric Idle, one of the original Pythons, Spamalot opened at the Shubert Theatre with an advance of £10.5 million. It sold £1 million the day after the first night and is continuing to make more than £270,000 a day.
Not since Mel Brooks's stage version of The Producers in 2001 has the US stage "bristled with such anticipation of a major hit", according to trade magazine Variety.
And this is a genuinely British comedy. All the surviving Pythons gave their blessing to the musical, which tells the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and their quest for the Holy Grail.
None of the Pythons appears, although John Cleese provides the voice of God. The cast is headed by Rocky Horror Picture Show star Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce, who was Dr Niles Crane in Frasier.
Clive Barnes of the New York Post raved about the show. "Bloody fantastic, gorgeously silly. Only the very dead could hold back their laughter, and even they would probably rattle a few appreciative bones," he wrote.
