I see that Eric Idle has made a deal to turn his hit Broadway musical “Spamalot” into a movie. It won’t be a filmed version of a stage production, but a revision made specifically for the screen.
As much as I loved the show, I wish everyone involved would pause long enough to watch the movie musical version of the Broadway musical version of Mel Brooks’ original movie version of “The Producers.” By the time it got to that third rendering — even with the prodigious talents of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick — it had lost all of its wit and fun. Worse, the broad performances by the stars and everyone else in the cast, so necessary to make it work as a stage production, looked horrible through the camera lens. While the two previous incarnations had been hysterical and perfect, none of that magic translated back to the big screen.
If you want to see a movie version of “Spamalot,” I suggest merely watching the source material again, as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” remains one of the best comedies of all time. The only thing you’ll miss is the Lady Of The Lake character, originally played beautifully on stage by Sara Ramirez. It’s a part that is so Broadway-specific that I worry about it being watered down for the movie.
Let the legend lie, Eric, or risk being compared to the umpteenth, updated, but no longer funnny Neil Simon script for “The Odd Couple,” with two divorced interracial gender-neutral robots trying to share an apartment without driving each other crazy.