The Spamalot Blog – Week 15

Hi everyone! Connor here a.k.a The Minstrel a.k.a the only person in the entire show who gets to say the word “Penis”, and it’s my turn to keep you all up to date on this week’s rehearsals.

It was a beautiful day on Monday and we turned up at the Intimate ready to dance ourselves to exhaustion as usual, only to find a minor problem.  We seemed to be missing a very large chunk of the cast, giving the impression that the population of Finland had been ravaged by a terrible plague:

 

Now I know that the global population was a lot smaller in the middle ages, but it was very rare for any Nordic country to have a population in the single digits [citation needed]

Yes it turns out there were several other plays going on this week and our multi-talented cast had found themselves needed elsewhere.  I’m sure they gave some absolutely wonderful performances worthy of heaps of praise, but my job here is to flog tickets for Spamalot.  So you can go read about those somewhere else.

So while our rehearsals this week were a little less full of lavish dance numbers and rafter-raising harmonies (I guess if you want to see that stuff you’ll just have to buy a ticket) we DID get to focus on all the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts stuff that goes in to putting on a show.  We blocked some of the smaller scenes, ran some dialogue, and most exciting for me we got to practice the minstrel scene with props!

 

Obviously I’m going to be completely mature and professional whenever I’m handed a tambourine during rehearsals (it’s kind of lost in the text but I’m winking and crossing my fingers right now)

So with all those miscellaneous scenes sorted the show is in a really good place!  We’re just about ready to start doing full runs and polish everything to perfection.  Myself and other SMP newbies have commented to each other about how great it is to be part of a show where the production team are so well organised, and everyone in the cast is putting in so much effort.  Lines have been learnt, dances are being practiced.  I’ve even heard a rumour that Gethin has commited to full method acting for his role, and can be found on weekdays crouched on a shelf in the tinned goods section at Sainsbury’s.

Look how proud he is of his Spam Pants!  (Spamts?)

Among other exciting news this week, we got to meet Archie’s evil twin who’ll be playing the Beast of Caerbannog, the most adorable mass-murdering monster since that little girl from The Ring

We got our first glimpse at our animations, because it’s not Monty Python unless it contains more giant feet than Tarantino’s porn folder.

We learnt that not only do I have to tap dance, but I have to tap dance on top of this very small box.  I vote that instead of a raffle we have a sweepstake where you can place bets on which of us Knights will end the show with broken ankles.

And the costume department were busy affixing letters to the posteriors of our lovely Laker Girls:

“Excuse me ladies, mind if I take a photo of your arses?”
“Oh, for the show blog right?”

“Uhhhh…. Yeah.  Sure”

By now I’m sure you’re raving to see it.  How can you buy tickets you ask?   Well just look at how happy Warren is to show off our newest piece of advertising:

Unfortunately the publicity budget ran out before we could buy a pole to fix it to, so he has to stand like that on the side of the road for the next 2 weeks.  If you see him, please offer him a sandwich or something.  And follow the link to https://www.millfieldtheatre.co.uk/ to buy tickets!  Bring your friends!  Bring your Mum!  Bring your cat!  Bring the Spanish Inquisition!  It’s going to be Spamtastic!

You can book your tickets here: