Monty Python and the Holy Grail at 50

Monty Python and the Holy Grail turns 50 this year, and the creators at Honest Trailers have produced this humorous video on the film.

You can also watch the film online for from YouTube for free (with ads):

Coming Soon: Woller's From Camelot to Spamalot

From Camelot to Spamalot:Musical Retellings of Arthurian Legend on Stage and Screen

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/from-camelot-to-spamalot-9780197511039?q=arthurian&lang=en&cc=us#

 

Megan Woller 

A new look at the Arthurian legend
First book that groups significant works of Arthurian musical adaptations together
Includes discussion of archival material

Paperback, $35.00 (also available as hardcover and ebook)

This item is not yet published. It is available for pre-orders and will ship on 22 March 2021. 

248 Pages

6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches

ISBN: 9780197511039

 

Description

For centuries, Arthurian legend has captured imaginations throughout Europe and the Americas with its tales of Camelot, romance, and chivalry. The ever-shifting, age-old tale of King Arthur and his world is one which depends on retellings for its endurance in the cultural imagination. Using adaptation theory as a framework, From Camelot to Spamalot foregrounds the role of music in selected Arthurian adaptations, examining six stage and film musicals. The book considers how musical versions in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture interpret the legend of King Arthur, contending that music guides the audience to understand this well-known tale and its characters in new and unexpected ways. All of the productions considered include an overtly modern perspective on the legend, intruding and even commenting on the tale of King Arthur. Shifting from an idealistic utopia to a silly place, the myriad notions of Camelot offer a look at the importance of myth in American popular culture. Author Megan Woller's approach, rooted in the literary theory of scholars like Linda Hutcheon, highlights the intertextual connections between chosen works and Arthurian legend. In so doing, From Camelot to Spamalot intersects with and provides a timely contribution to several different fields of study, from adaptation studies and musical theater studies to film studies and Arthurian studies.

 

 

Table of Contents


Acknowledgements 

Introduction 

Part 1: Adapting Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Prelude: Twain as Adapter
Chapter 1: Musical Storytelling and Revision in Rodgers and Hart's A Connecticut Yankee
Chapter 2: Bing Crosby's Stardom and Legend in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 

Part 2: Adapting T.H. White's The Once and Future King
Chapter 3: Interpretation and Characterization in Lerner and Loewe's Camelot
Chapter 4: Naiveté and the Depiction of Arthur's Childhood in Disney's The Sword in the Stone

Part 3: Monty Python as Adapters
Chapter 5: Parody and the Role of Song in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Chapter 6: Notions of Place, Legend, and Broadway in Monty Python's Spamalot 

Conclusion

Archival Collections
Bibliography
Index 

 

 

Author Information


Megan Woller is Director of Liberal Studies and Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Gannon University. Her research interests include film music, musical theater, popular music, and music and gender. She is the author of articles on film musical adaptations in The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Adaptations, Music and the Moving Image, and Studies in Musical Theatre. 

 

 

Out Now: A Green and Pagan Land

New from McFarland:

A Green and Pagan Land: Myth, Magic and Landscape in British Film and Television
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/a-green-and-pagan-land/
David Huckvale

$39.95
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 227
Bibliographic Info: 33 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7050-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2993-3
Imprint: McFarland

British literature often refers to pagan and classical themes through richly detailed landscapes that suggest more than a mere backdrop of physical features. The myth-inspired writings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Algernon Blackwood, Aleister Crowley, Lord Dunsany and even Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows informed later British films and television dramas such as The Owl Service (1969-70), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), The Wicker Man (1973), Excalibur (1981) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). The author analyzes the evocative language and esthetics of landscapes in literature, film, television and music, and how “psycho-geography” is used to explore the influence of the past on the present.


About the Author(s)

David Huckvale has worked as a researcher, writer and presenter for BBC Radio and as a lecturer for various universities in England. He lives in rural Bedfordshire.