{"id":28344,"date":"2026-08-05T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=28344"},"modified":"2026-07-29T15:01:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:01:43","slug":"spamalot-musical-hams-up-the-holy-grail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2026\/08\/05\/spamalot-musical-hams-up-the-holy-grail\/","title":{"rendered":"Spamalot<\/em> musical hams up the Holy Grail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the comedic greats perched atop the pinnacle of British comedy is Monty Python and the Holy Grail <\/i>(1975). The film employs classic dry British humour to tell the slapstick story of King Arthur and his inept Knights of the Round Table as they embark on a quest to find the Holy Grail, chucking holy hand grenades at killer bunnies and inflicting only minor flesh wounds. Presented by Broadway in Victoria, Spamalot<\/i> is a musical-theatre production borrowing heavily from that film. Actor Chris Collins-Pisano plays several iconic roles within the production, including Lancelot, the French Taunter, and Tim the Enchanter.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpamalot<\/i> is a pretty topsy-turvy take on the whole Arthurian myth, legend, and lore, lovingly ripped off from the movie,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a beautiful mix of sketch comedy and really, really silly toilet humour mixed with highbrow comedy, but then we\u2019ve also got this huge spectacle Broadway show going on, with amazing choreography.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Spamalot<\/em> is a musical-theatre take on the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail<\/em> (photo by photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Collins-Pisano says that, as a fan of the original work, his priorities in the show lie in faithfully recreating the source material rather than taking artistic license to retell it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a favourite musical of mine since I was a kid. I\u2019ve been a huge Monty Python fan for a long time, so when I got the audition, I was really psyched about it, and it\u2019s been a blast,\u201d he says. \u201cWith something so iconic like this, I feel like I don\u2019t really have a problem with doing a little bit of highway robbery, honestly. So getting to use as a baseline everything that John Cleese did in the movie… is pretty important to me. Because it\u2019s just too good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans also have nostalgia going into the show, says Collins-Pisano, and what they\u2019re looking for is the lines and set pieces that they fell in love with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere really is some level of expectation from the audience,\u201d he says. \u201cThe movie\u2019s been around for 50 years; the musical has been around for over 20 now, so, you know, people kind of have an idea of what the show is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The process of adapting a movie to a stage play does still provide some opportunity for creativity, says Collins-Pisano, because the medium is different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely am putting my own spin on it. It\u2019s cool to adapt something that everybody knows from a movie, to take it to the stage, because you get to embody the script a little bit more, because you can\u2019t use close-ups and stuff like that,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to communicate a little differently sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wide variety of accents (including British, Scottish, and French) are fun for Collins-Pisano, because he gets to either take them very seriously or ham them up to his heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely trying to nail the accents, I think it\u2019s such an important part of this style of humour to treat it as seriously as you can,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the only one that I kind of have fun with is the French Taunter, but I\u2019m basing that accent on what John Cleese created in the movie. So when people ask about the French dialect, I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t do a good French accent. I do a really, really bad one\u2026 on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins-Pisano says that Spamalot<\/i> is a fun, family, feel-good sort of show, with a little something for everybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the kind of show that you\u2019re going to walk out feeling better than when you walk in,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s so many different jokes, with so many different levels of sophistication, that it\u2019s got something for all different ages. It\u2019s a great escape, and it\u2019s super fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spamalot
\n<\/i><\/i>Various times, Friday, August 28 to Sunday, August 30
\nVarious prices, Royal Theatre
\nrmts.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the comedic greats perched atop the pinnacle of British comedy is Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). The film employs classic dry British humour to tell the slapstick story of King Arthur and his inept Knights of the Round Table as they embark on a quest to find the Holy Grail, chucking holy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[357,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-5-2026","category-arts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t