As Broadway.com first reported on August 11, Eric Idle is currently working on bringing a musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail to the Broadway stage. The tuner, which has working title of Spamalot and will have direction by Mike Nichols and choreography by Jerry Mitchell, will now hit the Great White Way in the spring of 2005 instead of 2004 as previously expected, following out-of-town engagements.

Spamalot will feature a book by Idle based on the screenplay he co-wrote with fellow Monty Python creators Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin and music and lyrics by Idle and John Du Prez. The stage show will include two songs from the 1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail film.

Monty Python rose to popularity through the Flying Circus television series and then went on to make movies. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a send-up of the Arthurian legend that finds King Arthur on a quest for the Holy Grail, is probably the most popular of the group's films. The musical's planned name Spamalot is a reference to a line in the film's song “The Song Of The Knights of Camelot,” in which the knights sing: “We dine well here in Camelot, we eat ham and jam and spamalot.”

“I like the title Spamalot a lot,” Idle said in a statement, “but I was thinking it might be smart to ask audiences on my upcoming U.S. tour if they liked it as much as I do. After all, they are the ones who will be paying Broadway prices to see the show. So there's a good chance the title may change.”

Whatever it is called, the Monty Python musical will feature sets by Tony Award-winner Tim Hatley. Casting for the project will begin shortly.