Spamalot - Can someone help us London fans?- Page 2

[RYANWOODS]

Posted: 2/19/06 at 11:17am

Tim Curry was offered to play the role in London, whether he accepted you will have to see!!

Eddie Izzard has been linked to the show

Hannah Waddingham is definatly Lady of the Lake - she will be great!

There will be a few suprises in the cast...!

[MrsCurry]

Posted: 2/19/06 at 11:28am

Thats just a mean thing to say lol. It's gonna be some screwed up case of 'he said yes and then changed his mind' etc. Hell - I'm still waiting on Billy Pearce or someone to fill the buggering role.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 2/19/06 at 11:32am

Eddie Izzard is an interesting choice.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 2/19/06 at 1:10pm

it's a wonderful musical...I have never laughed so hard or so long in my life!

Updated On: 2/19/06 at 01:10 PM

[Eastwickian]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 6:15am

Eddie Izzard would be great! Still a little concerned at rumours of Shane Richie though....

[MrsCurry]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 6:29am

hehe yep - they are rather concerning...

Ah well!

[beckie_nyc]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 7:58am

We still haven't heard back on Mr. Curry being entirely 'miserable' during his Broadway run of Spamalot, have we?

I just heard him say (after leaving) that he is getting to old for this.

I have yet to see Mr. Beale at the stage door (dito Mr. Sieber.) Sorry.

[MrsCurry]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 8:03am

I'm not convinced he could be described as miserable during the run...(although; i dunno what goes on in the man's head; neither does anyone else but him...) But just reports from the last show he did in NY of his tears etc - I just wouldnt think he'd be crying if he couldnt wait to leave.

However - I am aware that he may have been crying because he realised he was 'too old for it' and it hit him that would be his last live performance ever. *breaks down in sobs* lol. Anyways - I'm going to get myself to the Palace 2moro; i can pray some more i guess.

[beckie_nyc]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 11:51am

Little tidbit of info from Variety. Hope this helps...

Merry monarch stages royal flush
British invasion attacks B'way
 
By DAVID ROONEY

In the past month's British invasion of Broadway, three esteemed stage vets from across the Pond have coated a fresh veneer of class on last season's hit shows. Not to detract from what Eileen Atkins brings to "Doubt" or Jonathan Pryce to "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," but it's hard to imagine anyone having a more infectious good time than Simon Russell Beale appears to be having in "Monty Python's Spamalot."

Actors almost invariably say the most satisfying roles are the darkest and meatiest -- that plumbing dramatic depths yields the greatest personal and professional rewards. But after a year in which Russell Beale has planted the dagger of political assassin Cassius in "Julius Caesar," redefined the dour contours of "Macbeth" and inhabited the bloodless academic at the center of Christopher Hampton's "The Philanthropist," the evidence onstage at the Shubert indicates that cutting loose as King Arthur is a liberating job.

Given his history with fruity comic roles, Tim Curry was a shrewd and winning choice as the show's original Arthur. Russell Beale is a less obvious one.Regardless of how dexterously the Brit stage mainstay maneuvered his way around a more slippery brand of intellectual comedy in his previous Broadway excursion, Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," it was never a given that a thesp best known for classical roles would fit the wackiness of "Spamalot."

However, watching one of the world's foremost stage actors slum it in high (or low, depending on your viewpoint) comedy proves as exhilarating for the audience as it is for Russell Beale's fellow cast members, all of whom seem to have been given an extra adrenaline shot by the new arrival.

The boost to the show underlines how smart recasting can extend the mileage of a Broadway hit. While producers frequently shoehorn in replacement stars based on their potential box office drawing power to lift a flagging show -- the ethnically inappropriate Rosie O'Donnell in "Fiddler on the Roof," the aborted attempt to get Britney Spears into "Sweet Charity," for example -- choices like Russell Beale, Atkins and Pryce make artistic as well as commercial sense.

While it clocks in at the same time, "Spamalot" now seems faster and looser than when it opened last March, embracing a spirit of vaudeville and pantomime that should serve it well when the show debuts on the West End in the fall. Maybe it's the Tony for best musical or perhaps just the more oiled machinery of a hit show finding its groove, but the sense of the leads performing in the shadows of the original Pythons is no longer such a handicap.

What played initially as a strung-together series of comic sketches now has achieved a semblance of fluidity. And while Eric Idle's script still tends to sledgehammer its jokes home with audience-pandering insistence, the enjoyment levels onstage are so ludicrously high, and the interplay between Russell Beale, David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria (recently returned from an extended absence to film "Huff") and Christopher Sieber so spirited, it's virtually impossible not to be swept along.

Even the miscasting of Lauren Kennedy as the Lady of the Lake fails to hobble the show. The brassy vulgarity and showbizzy largesse of Tony winner Sara Ramirez in the role was a tough act to follow, and Kennedy comes across as a porcelain doll in a performance that's all self-conscious imitation.

While "Spamalot" is an ensemble show without a definitive star turn, Russell Beale's King Arthur now seems marginally more central to the Python tuner, arguably moreso than when Curry wore the crown. And most of the show's brief energy dips are in act two, when the actor is absent from the stage.

With his noble bearing, plummy vowels and a mischievous glint in his constantly rolling eyes, reminding the audience and himself that he could be doing "Hamlet," Russell Beale appears utterly content to look silly, his diminutive stature and tubby figure exaggerated in costumer Tim Hatley's chainmail and tunic. But the mix of deadpan demeanor with impish delight is just one of the performance's pleasures.

Whether he's cantering onto the stage on an invisible horse, tunefully selling his songs, essaying faux Fosse moves, swishing his skirt in emulation of Chita Rivera doing "America" or attempting, unsuccessfully, to contain his mirth at the convulsions of a knight beheaded by the show's killer bunny, Russell Beale's pompous yet unerringly understated buffoonery elevates the show and everyone in it.

Appearing equal parts amused and bemused, smirking and solemn, his is a comic class act that makes him a deserving new King of Broadway.

Another stage commitment in the fall prevents Russell Beale from opening in "Spamalot" when the show hits London's Palace Theater Oct. 2. But even in a later stint, it would be a savvy move for producers to enlist the thesp when this Broadway-born foray into legendary British comic and historical terrain stakes its claim on "home" soil.

Date in print: Mon., Feb. 20, 2006, Weekly

[leeinlondon]

Posted: 2/20/06 at 12:02pm

Yes I heard Eddie Izzard would play King Arthur and may be at the opening of ticket sales tomorrow along with a confirmed Eric Idle.. we shall see.