Python gang reunited as Spamalot opens in London

The stars of Monty Python's Flying Circus gathered in London Tuesday for the West End premiere of Spamalot, a stage musical thatwas a huge hitin New York and Toronto.

Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam were at the U.K. premiere of the show, based on the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

John Cleese, the only surviving member of the Python comedy troupe not to attend, was filming in Australia.

Palin said the event gave the comedy stars a rare opportunity to catch up.

"It's one of the few times when we can actually talk to each other, make a few jokes and count up the money," he said.

Idle, author and lyricist forSpamalot, said he hoped London would embrace the show as warmly as Broadway, where it landed three Tony awards.

"I am a little nervous," Idle admitted in advance of the opening.

He needn't have been. The Python gang's very British form of humour has a ready-made audience on its home turf.

And the critics, with a few exceptions, raved about the production.

"Deliriously silly and loopily enjoyable," said the Independent, while the Daily Express found it"manic, tasteless, derivative, scatter-shot and very funny."

The Guardian critic was not so admiring.

"Irony has its place but it's not quite enough to sustain a whole evening," he wrote.

Return to West End

The show marked the first West End appearance for more than 20 years for British actor Tim Curry, who plays King Arthur in the show, a role he played to great acclaim on Broadway.

Idle, who lives in the U.S.,took three years to script Spamalot. It played to sellout crowdsin Toronto for two months this summer.

His next project, based on the 1979 film Life of Brian, the spoof about a man who is born the same day as Jesus Christ, will premiere in Toronto.

It has been commissioned to be part ofLuminato, the Toronto Festival of Arts, Culture and Creativity, in June 2007.

A 50-minute work titled Not the Messiah, itwill be conducted by Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Peter Oundjian, who is Idle's cousin.

Idle is writing the score, to be performed with a narrator, soloist and choir,with John Du Prez, who also worked with him on the music for Spamalot.