NEW YORK - "Spamalot," the much-hyped stage adaptation of the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" opened on Broadway Thursday to winning reviews and nearly 20 million dollars in advance ticket sales.
Directed by Mike Nichols and written by original Python team member Eric Idle, the musical's opening night drew a star-studded audience that included the likes of Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg and David Bowie.
At the end of the evening, Idle invited the other surviving Pythons, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, onto the stage for a curtain call.
A funeral urn was used to represent the sixth member of the legendary comedy troupe, Graham Chapman, who died in 1989.
As the playbill indicated, "Spamalot" is "lovingly ripped off from the motion picture" and includes all the film's best-known set-pieces from the killer rabbit to the knights that say "ni."
The producers' gamble that the familiarity of the material would be one of the show's main draws, seems to have paid off, with most reviews lauding the show for breathing fresh life into what has been a lacklustre Broadway season.
"Bloody fantastic. Gorgeously silly. Superlative and better," gushed the New York Post, adding: "Only the very dead could hold back their laughter, and even they would probably rattle a few appreciative bones."
The New York Daily News described the musical as "an evening of rapturous insanity."
The show stars Tim Curry as King Arthur and David Hyde Pierce, best known as the nerdish Niles in the hit US sitcom "Frasier," as Sir Robin.
While reviewers were unanimous in pronouncing "Spamalot" a hit -- it has already racked up 18 million dollars in advance sales -- some had reservations about the recycling of Monty Python material for the stage.
"That 'Spamalot' is the best new musical to open on Broadway this season is inarguable, but that's not saying much," said The New York Times.
"The show is amusing, agreeable, forgettable -- a better-than-usual embodiment of the musical for theatergoers who just want to be reminded now and then of a few of their favorite things," the Times said.
The Washington Post said Python fans could take "a guarantee of ecstasy to the bank," but added that most of the jokes in the show "not only are 30 years old, they feel 30 years old."
03/18/2005 15:45 GMT