Kids in London - Spamalot

It’s hard to find things that both teenagers and their parents can enjoy in Central London but this one will take some beating! I have the advantage that my 15 year old son is a Monty Python fan so we booked the tickets ages ago and decided to make an afternoon and evening of it.

After pausing at Waterloo for one of my son’s favourite AMT cocoanut milk shakes, we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and spent a considerable time pottering around the Virgin Megastore there. He showed me that you can take just about any CD over to the special listening devices and hear samples of the tracks through headphones. We spent a while looking at the startling number of band logo tee-shirts. Luckily for me he has tee-shirts for the bands he most admires. But I was persuaded to invest in a Tim Armstrong CD (kinda reggae rock) that we will (allegedly!) share. Then I had my arm twisted to browse in Gap where he got two polo shirts for his summer wardrobe. Luckily time was moving on or I am sure I would have been dragged across to Lilywhites for some sports gear to complete the shopping trip.

So we took a pleasant stroll all the way down Shaftesbury Avenue and on the way he talked about what he and his mate got up to when they visited China Town at Chinese New Year. Well, the edited mum-friendly highlights anyway.

Arriving at the theatre a little early and keen to get out of the rain, we headed up to the top level for a drink. It was funny to see that they had branded beer called “The Holy (Gr)Ail”. He had a coke though and I had a nice glass of Chablis. There were lots of merchandise stalls selling all kinds of items from the show. They were a bit pricey but we had to get a small white fluffy bunny that reveals killer teeth when squeezed to take back to my nine year old daughter who is not a Python fan (although the organisers indicate that kids over eight are permitted to the show).

The first half of the production was excellent. We shall never forget the hilarious coconut horse-riding or the African Swallow scene. Nor some of the excellent “let’s send up theatre” songs, although we both wondered whether the number about “You need Jews for success in a West End production” was PC. The most side splitting scene was the French hurling insults (and then cows) from the castle walls at Arthur and his knights. My son loved the Knights of Ni scene. The second half was good but did not have quite as much impact as the first half – or maybe we were just exhausted by all the laughing by then. We both joined in the singing of “Always look on the bright side of life” at the end of the show.

We completed our evening with a stop at Burger King in Piccadilly and it was nice to find such a good mother-son bonding event. He is now considering going along to see Avenue Q (which I have seen and is excellent) as there are weekday tickets available at £10). A London theatre-goer is born!
:)