Monty Python aficionados (and the uninitiated, nudge nudge, wink wink) will devour the original Broadway cast recording of Spamalot along with copious amounts of ham, jam and spam! Eric Idle’s book (based ever so reverently on the hit film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and his combined songsmithing with John Du Prez have resulted in a truly marvellous ode to the foibles of life and how to deal with them. The equally witty orchestrations—replete with spot-on satires of the Great White Way (“The Song That Goes Like This,” “Diva’s Lament (Whatever Happened to My Part?”), cheesy string interventions, choruses of “Ah” or “La,” the occasional banjo strum and the long-loved coconut as horse lash, er, hurrah!, tickle the ear and delight the mind. In many ways there’s nothing finer than the “Find Your Grail” wail, so Beatles’ “Let it Be” and even sporting a “Penny Lane” trumpet obbligato! Traditionalists won’t want to miss the Offenbachesque “Run Away” can-can (with a couple of ounces of “William Tell” send away), the Klezmer clarinet shadings which underscore “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” (“If You Don’t Have any Jews”) and the naughty bits and pieces of gibberish Gregorian Chant and very-tight tights offerings from the Troubadour Minstrels. Although the singing is more hearty than refined, no one will fail to shed a tear (or loose a fart) for the Python’s mantra “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Amen to that, cue the coconuts! JWR