Curtain call
Filed Under Curt Hennig | Posted on April 12, 2008
At the merchandise stand for Monty Python’s Spamalot,
there are the usual sundry items for sale: mugs, badges, magnets,
key-rings and caps. Then there’s the more Pythonesque accoutrements
such as miniature flying cows, killer rabbit slippers, a cow
catapult deluxe set and black T-shirts emblazoned with the somewhat
prophetic phrase, “I’m not dead yet %26#133; “.
The musical may be a big hit on Broadway but it’s curtains for
the Melbourne version, starring Bille Brown as King Arthur. The
final performance is tonight at Her Majesty’s Theatre. It is the
first casualty in an increasingly cut-throat commercial theatre
sector. A production of Guys %26amp; Dolls, starring Lisa
McCune and Marina Prior, opens at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne
tonight - it comes to Sydney in January - and the aggressively
marketed Broadway hit Wicked has its Australian premiere in
Melbourne in July.
For Spamalot’s cast, musicians and crew, including many
artists from Sydney, the fate of the musical - a madcap vaudeville
inspired by the film Monty Python And The Holy Grail -
became a source of constant speculation two months after its gala
December opening attended by its creator, Eric Idle, and director,
Mike Nichols.
Reviews for the cleverly designed production ranged from
lukewarm to glowing. Audiences gave most performances a standing
ovation. Geoffrey Rush was a big fan of the work while Nichols, the
director of films such as The Graduate, Closer and
Charlie Wilson’s War, told the Australian producers, Michael
Coppel and Louise Withers, that the cast and production values were
on a par with its Broadway counterpart. That show won the 2005 Tony
Award for best musical.
So what went wrong in the court of Spamalot and will the
musical get to Sydney?
Behind the scenes there have been candid talks among the
producers, key production personnel and theatre management about
the musical’s failure to find an audience in Melbourne.
Spamalot was produced by a large consortium, including
several overseas backers, and it is understood that there were
conflicting views about how it should best be pitched, marketed and
publicised in the Australian market. Some of the adopted strategies
clearly backfired. It is believed that Mike Walsh, who owns Her
Majesty’s Theatre, was critical of the show’s slow-burn marketing
and wondered why more wasn’t done to woo the punters.
“It was always going to be a hard sell given the overcrowded
market,” an industry source told the Herald. “It [the
closure] didn’t come as a bolt from the blue because tickets had
been discounted and the two Sunday matinees didn’t pull the crowds
%26#133; The top ticket prices were way too expensive.”
Another insider described the musical’s marketing and publicity
campaign as “a disaster”, asserting that there was insufficient
brand recognition or a strong promotion of its talents to help lift
awareness.
The decision to play two Sunday matinees didn’t pay off, a
misguided timetabling given that Melbourne is not a tourist town
like New York. Some commentators criticised Spamalot’s lack
of high-profile names to bolster the box office.
“People would say, ‘Oh, the show doesn’t have stars’ or [that]
they didn’t know what the show would be. But the cast was hidden
away from the media and not nearly enough was done to tell people
about the nature of the piece,” the insider said.
“It’s not like Billy Elliot, where you know the story
about the kid getting into the ballet from the film. It’s
frustrating because the musical is sophisticated and silly, and
potentially has enormous appeal. Audiences left happy and smiling.
The matinees were full of blokes, which you don’t often get, who
loved the witty tunes and jokes.
“Spamalot was doing huge business early on and there’s a
prevailing view that the show would work wonders in Sydney. I know
the producers are keen to tour it and I just hope and pray that the
musical gets the chance it deserves.”
When Spamalot opened, it was envisaged that it would run
in Melbourne for most of this year, then transfer to the Lyric
Theatre, Star City, after Phantom Of The Opera ended its
limited run. The commercial theatre scene in Sydney has hotted up
in recent months - the West End hit comedy Boeing Boeing
opens in July, the same month the lavishly resourced Cirque du
Soleil returns - though producers consistently choose Melbourne as
a first port of call, given the advertising support the Victorian
Government gives them.
Ironically, Spamalot has been playing to packed houses
since word of its closing got out.
“The producers should never have made it an open-ended season or
released tickets in three-month blocks,” says a cast member who
declined to be named. “They should have put ‘last weeks’ in the
ads, a common enough ploy to keep shows afloat, at least for a
little while longer.”
Another irony is that the musical, featuring a drolly
understated Brown, the delightful Lucinda Shaw as the Lady of the
Lake, Derek Metzger, Jason Langley, Mark Conaghan and Ben Lewis,
has been nominated for nine Green Room Awards, to be announced on
April 20. The show is expected to snare at least four prizes,
including set and costume design for Tim Hatley, and perhaps best
musical, in a field comprising Miss Saigon, Priscilla
Queen Of The Desert and Keating!.
Such honours, of course, will be cold comfort for the cast and
crew as they hunt for jobs on Monday.
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