Harry Groener in SPAMALOT

[jboy1]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 4:14pm

This may be a really dumb question and probably talked about here already...but does Harry do his own tapping in KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE or do they keep the coconut bit in?

[EdmundOG]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 4:16pm

Why would they have him do his own tapping? I mean, he's an excellent tap dancer, but there's no reason to remove the joke.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 4:17pm

Yeah. The coconut clacks are the running joke of the show. Having him do his own dancing, no matter how good he is, would defeat the purpose of the on-going gag.

[EdmundOG]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 4:19pm

And now that I think about it, it adds an extra layer to the joke for we that know how good he is.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 6:10pm

Of course, if I were an excellent tap dancer (which I'm definitely not), I wouldn't want to have to make the audience think that I can't tap at all...so kudos to Groener for swallowing his pride

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 6:18pm

It's not about tap dancing, being a good dancer, or being a crappy dancer. It's about an extended gag in the show that's played upon throughout the show. If they had Tommy Tune play King Arthur (which could be interesting), he'd dance along with the coconuts.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 6:43pm

Good points, Yankeefan007 and Baritone

[MCfan2]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 6:47pm

I've never seen "Spamalot" -- could someone tell me what the gag is?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 7:09pm

Rather than having a horse to gallop, they use coconut shells, like in the movie. The whole point was that the budget of the movie wasn't large enough to accomodate horses.

[flaemmchen]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 11:47pm

(continuing with Yankee's post) They incorporate the horse gag into the scene where they all go to Camelot: the knights tap dance, and then King Arthur gets up and just waves his foot in the air while his servant clacks the coconuts together.

Harry Groener is fabulous in the role, by the way. I'll be sad to see him leave at the end of October.

Updated On: 8/14/06 at 11:47 PM