Monty Python's Flying Circus musical 'Spamalot' hopes to spread the silliness

NEW YORK — Eric Idle sometimes gazes up into the heavens and wonders about something if we ever make contact with aliens: Will they have a sense of humor? "I think the answer must be yes, because it's about self-awareness," says the founding member of the comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus. "It's about laughing at yourself and your own death and your inevitable end, which you can do nothing about." Until there's some intergalactic meeting, Idle's mission on Earth has been to make us laugh, and he continues that crusade with a national touring version of his hit musical "Spamalot," which begins in Ohio this week. "I think laughter is essential, and it's both a relief and a corrective on how to look at life," he says. The tour will travel to more than 30 cities in its first year including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, St. Louis, Houston and Milwaukee. "The comedy musical is the most fabulous form of theater there is because it's got everything you want — it can have drama, but also laughter, dancing, girls. It's got it all," Idle says. "Spamalot" is built on shenanigans that include a group of knights fond of shrubbery, folks clicking coconuts to mimic the sound of horse hoofs, a singing and dancing plague victim, flatulent Frenchmen and killer rabbits. The stage tale is loosely based on the 1975 movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," which concerns King Arthur and his quest to corral some knights who'll go off with him to find the grail, the cup Jesus drank from at The Last Supper. Idle recalls that the original movie cost $400,000 to make — funded in part by members of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, looking for a tax write-off — and was filmed over five weeks in Scotland. "It was cold and miserable, but it was funny," Idle says. The inspiration to turn it into a stage show came when Idle was working on a CD-ROM game based on "The Holy Grail." "I suddenly went, 'Wait a minute, if you could turn 'The Holy Grail' into a game, you can certainly turn it into a Broadway musical." Idle wrote the story and lyrics and the music is by John Du Prez. Idle says the secret to the show's success was tapping legendary director Mike Nichols. "Mike knew everything about funny," he says. It arrived on Broadway in 2005 and won the best new musical Tony Award. A few years ago, Idle came across his long-forgotten diaries of the time, revealing the tense moments and behind-the-scenes struggles in making the musical. He's published them as "The Spamalot Diaries." "It is a sort of how-to about making a musical," he says. Two of the show's highlight are the Act II opening song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," which was borrowed from another Python film, "Life of Brian," and the rousing final number — "Find Your Grail," with the lyrics "Keep your eyes on the goal/Then the prize you won't fail/That's your grail." Idle says one of his favorite moments was watching patrons leaving the Broadway show singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" and clicking coconuts they bought at the merch kiosk. "If you can just brighten people's lives to be silly in the street immediately afterwards, I think you've done a great job," he says. "Not many shows do that." Made up of Idle, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman, Monty Python brought a unique blend of satire, surrealism and silliness to British TV screens in a series that ran from 1969 to 1974 and later in several movies.