Spamalot

Last night, in what could be the final theatre-going event of 2008 (or longer, depending on how much I end up tightening the financial belt), Pam and I went to see Monty Python's Spamalot.

It's closing soon, they're offering $20 tickets (visit http://www.BroadwayOffers.com and enter the code SPBAL20), and it's the Year of Yes, so why not?

Plus, we'd seen a lot of downer theatre this year (Equus, All My Sons), so we thought it'd be nice to end the year on an upbeat musical.

The show was all right. I'd rather watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, obviously, but it was a way to spend the evening. And it had a lot of puns! I love 'em! I'm an idiot! They're one of my favorite things, I find them just punderful.

When King Arthur said, "The grail is a symbol..." and the percussionist in the orchestra hit a cymbal, oh, how I laughed.

During a dance number, when someone carried out a bale of hay and everyone on stage pointed at it and said "Hey!" rhythmically, I hit my knee and elbowed Pam painfully to let her know how much I appreciated that horrible bit of wordplay.

And there's one more, I wish I could remember it, but I just started applauding. And I didn't stop. Pretty soon, the audience picked up on it, and they were applauding their approval for some stupid pun.

I was pretty proud of that moment. If there's one thing I can do, it's incite a crowd to action - I once got everyone in line at Splash Mountain to sing "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" or some similar song. Oh, and when we landed in Orlando last month, I got the other passengers to applaud. Yeah, I'm a regular John Candy from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

I kept track of the number of puns in the second act - there were ten. I was curious if any of them would get spontaneous applause that wasn't started by me. No pun in ten did.

That's my show, good night, folks!