The Spamalot Diaries

Starred review from July 8, 2024
Idle (Always Look on the Bright Side of Life) provides a rollicking account of the making of his Broadway musical Spamalot, based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Stitching together journal entries, emails, and discarded song lyrics, Idle covers the creative challenges of adapting a movie with 98 speaking roles into a play, hysterical table reads and endless rewrites, and blowing off steam with museum visits and nights out on the town (during dinner with Steve Martin and Stella McCartney at a West Village restaurant, Jerry Seinfeld, a “big Python fan,” stops by to say hello). Idle depicts the highs and lows of putting on a show with equal fondness, from butting heads with his director over scene changes to the warmth of rehearsals and the thrill of showing the musical to its first paying audiences. While the journal entries vary between bursts of creative insight and mundane accounts of individual rehearsals, the end result is an irresistible and unfiltered ode to the art of live theater. Fans will love this tantalizing glimpse behind the curtain.

August 1, 2024
A Monty Python member offers a glimpse into the making of a very silly musical.Spamalot, based on the 1975 comedyMonty Python and the Holy Grail, debuted on Broadway in 2005. This book is the diary Idle kept throughout rehearsals and production, "the story of a most unlikely theatrical hit, from the first read-through in New York to the first previews in Chicago until finally, a Broadway opening." The author began the script in 2001, when he realized the source material was perfect for a musical. "It already had three great songs, there are no horses onstage, and the quest for the Holy Grail is Wagnerian in scope," he writes. "Not the Ring cycle exactly, more the Rinse cycle." Idle covers everything: lining up the cast and crew, including longtime friend Mike Nichols as director; arguing over the script and songs; figuring out technical details, such as "how we are going to make the Killer Rabbit fly around the stage"; and the staging of the show, including "Opening Knight" on Broadway. He includes lyrics from deleted songs, emails, and copious anecdotes, such as the time "two huge New York cops" recognized him in front of the theater and wished him good luck with the show. Idle is also candid about health issues, from a tendon injury to food poisoning in Chicago to his teenager daughter's "severe bipolar episode" before the Broadway opening, for which he blames himself: "I have been absent these many months, fathering a musical. What a terrible price to pay for success." The author offers plenty of comedy to delight fans. Despite some clunkers, the text includes many hilarious bits, as when he begins an email to Nichols with, "Hello, mein F�hrer. Is that too formal?" An amusing behind-the-scenes look at a unique Broadway smash.

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September 1, 2024

Hit musicals don't spring fully formed from the head of Dionysus, the Greek god of theater. Creating a show and getting it to Broadway can take years and involve the work of dozens of people and numerous rewrites. Idle (Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography) shares his journal while developing the 2005 musical Spamalot, adapted from his 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. From its first table read and rehearsal in New York to its tryout in Chicago and its eventual Broadway opening and subsequent run, it's all in spirited and exceedingly witty prose. Idle's observations are sharp and clever, and his descriptions of his time in New York City are evocative. It's exciting and very entertaining reading, especially the hilarious emails between Idle and the show's director, Mike Nichols. Some cast members (including Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce) also make appearances, as do the writing staff, crew, producers, and more than a few of Idle's celebrity friends. VERDICT The backstage story of one of the most successful musicals (nominated for 14 Tony Awards and winner of three) will appeal to theater buffs and fans of Monty Python.--Carolyn M. Mulac

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2024
Bringing Spamalot, the musical based loosely on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, to the Broadway stage was no easy feat. But it was worth it: the production, written by Python's Eric Idle and scored by John Du Prez, was a spectacular, Tony Award-winning success. Idle kept a diary, recording the joys, frustrations, and unexpected moments of discovery that came with the process. It is published here exactly as he wrote it: a contemporaneous record of Spamalot's creation, and it is quite simply wonderful. Spamalot's success was far from a certainty; Idle had serious doubts from time to time, as did director Mike Nichols. The book takes us through the writing, casting, and staging of the production. We also get to know Idle himself, an immensely talented man who would draw on ever-dwindling reserves of creativity and courage to overcome one stumbling block after another. This is so much more than a making-of book; it's also a portrait of Eric Idle in the kind of detail that a more traditional memoir of Spamalot's creation might not have provided.

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