Review: Spamalot*****

Spamalot owes a hefty debt to panto. For a start, there's the set, which may well have started life in children's television circa 1983.

There's a little cross-dressing, a liberal helping of innuendo and just in case you were in any doubt, it all ends with a sing-along. However, there is one crucial difference. It's funny. Very funny.

Lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail by Eric Idle, much of the show will be familiar to fans of the film. There's the Knights Who Say Ni, there's the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog and, of course, there are the French soldiers free with their wind.

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But it's much cleverer than a few Python sketches stitched together.

Marcus Brigstocke is the current King Arthur, leading his largely hapless knights of the round table in the search for the Holy Grail.

Better known as a stand-up, Brigstocke had never sung in front of an audience before Spamalot, but one suspects it won't be long before he

gets a call from the West End. His big number, I'm All Alone, is worth the ticket price alone.

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Add in Todd Carty (yes, Tucker Jenkins plays Arthur's put-upon sidekick Patsy with understated charm), a cast of knights who look like they have walked straight off the set of Python and a script which crackles with Idle's one-liners and it's easy to see why it has been such a global hit.

The show's biggest revelation might yet be Hayley Tamaddon as the Lady of the Lake. After leaving Emmerdale (she played Delilah Dingle)

she trod the usual soap star route of panto and reality shows, winning Dancing on Ice.

But her performance here shows she deserves better than to be labelled another C-list celeb. A simply enormous voice and comic timing which rivals Brigstocke's, Tamaddon embraces what is a seriously silly night out

Idle has apparently been working on his next project for a couple of years.

It's unlikely to be finished for at least another three, but if Spamalot is anything to go by, it will be worth the wait.