There’s the Broadway crowd, comprised of folks who actually go to New York at least once a year to take in a few shows, and then there’s the Broadway Across America crowd, comprised of folks who go the BJCC at least once a year to take in the touring productions of whatever their OTM friends saw two seasons ago on The Great White Way. And there are still other crowds, albeit significantly smaller ones, who support local theatre companies whose productions never, ever include anybody breaking into song. Of course, I can’t know for sure which of these crowds would boast the greatest number of Monty Python fans, but I’d bet on the latter — and my purpose in this post is to encourage that very group to go see Spamalot. I’m as snobby a theatergoer as lives in this area code and I enjoyed the show, which surely means you will – or should.

The Playbill program for the show has an awful lot about Clay Aiken, who is performing the role of the Sir Robin in the New York production of Spamalot. Even if you didn’t care about American Idol, it’s hard for a Birminghamian not to wince when she reads “… he has long since outsold that season’s ‘Idol’ winner, the affable, velvet-voiced Ruben Studdard…” Pah! No doubt Aiken’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries. Anyway, the role of the Not-So-Brave knight is played in the touring production by the terrific James Beaman whose, “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” is one of the highlights of the show, even though the song’s repeated punch line (“You won’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jews!”) doesn’t get the laughs from a Deep South audience that it surely does in New York.

Other high points in the show are the technicolor tour de force “His Name is Lancelot” and almost every number done by the Lady of the Lake (Esther Stilwell). The sword-foisting royalty only mentioned in passing in Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a major role in Spamalot: The “watery tart” is recast as King Arthur’s love interest – the necessary heroine with the mellifluous voice. The conceit is one of several that the show’s creators employed to spin the smart cult film into a musical with mass appeal. Whereas Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a skewering satire of British history and mythology, Spamalot is Satire Lite, a middling send-up of Broadway culture with Monty Python’s greatest hits (coconuts for horses, knights who say “Ni!”, killer rabbits, etc.) as the engine driving the talented cast, not to mention ticket sales.

In short, Spamalot is funny but plotless, like so much of life.

Tickets are still available through Ticketmaster for the 8 p.m. show tonight, as well as shows at 1 and 7 p.m. on Sunday.

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