Reviews of Clay in Spamalot?- Page 4

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 8:50pm

A couple friends whose opinion I trust implicitly are at the show tonight. I'm anxious to hear what they think.

[Mikers]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 8:55pm

Ex-Idol Clay Aiken slips into 'Spamalot'

By MARK KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer Wed Jan 23, 1:34 PM ET

NEW YORK - Clay Aiken is trying to become the next American Idle.



"There's a lot of pressure," Aiken says. "To think about how many people dream of doing something like this and to have the opportunity is pretty humbling."

Humbling, and possibly a little bit puzzling: What's a nice North Carolina boy with scant theater background and a penchant for pop lite doing in a scatological English stage comedy?

Exactly.

"One of the reasons that it intrigued me was that it was so different. Nobody I think would have expected me to show up in 'Spamalot,'" he says, laughing.

"It's very irreverent. ... I mean, my character soils his pants on stage multiple times."

This also is different territory for Aiken, who hasn't really acted much and was even cut from his high school's production of "Guys and Dolls." Just nailing the stage lingo has him rattled.

"I'm having to learn a whole new language. Upstage, downstage. I'm like, 'Upstage? What's that mean? Behind? Oh, got it. Why didn't you just say behind? ...' It makes me crazier than I already am."

Aiken, 29, has taken over the role of Sir Robin, the cowardly knight that Idle once played on film and David Hyde Pierce originated when the Tony Award-winning musical debuted in 2005.

"I think I'm probably just like the character — kind of chicken, afraid of everything and likes to sing. This particular character becomes a knight because he really just wants to sing and dance. He's so surprised when he finds out there's fighting involved. That kind of silly stupidity? — yeah, that's me."

Aiken, a performer who has sold 6 million CDs and continues to draw fans to his concerts, confesses to being sore and exhausted as he prepares for his debut. Aiken's first performance was Friday.

"Probably more preparation has gone into this than anything I've ever done," he says. "It's not just learning music and lines and even steps. It's mentally preparing yourself to do all of it at once."

Associate director Peter Lawrence says Aiken has been no idle diva; the singer asked to be treated like any other company member and has been surprisingly fearless.

"Clay really surprised me. When you meet him, he's this sweet kid from North Carolina with an accent. And you think there's no way he can do Cambridge material. And then he does," says Lawrence.

"It's been a total delight and a surprise for me and everyone in the company to work with Clay because he can do things you'd never imagine he could do."

The show is based on the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," which came out in 1975. The film, in turn, grew out of the success of the cult BBC comedy series.

Aiken, it turns out, was a stranger to both.

"Until three months ago, I thought Monty Python was a person," he says, sheepishly.

Not surprisingly, the Python-Aiken partnership started poorly. After being courted by "Spamalot" producers a year ago, Aiken went to see the show and left befuddled.

And why not? He was expecting something like "The Phantom of the Opera" and instead saw characters slapped with fish, dancing plague corpses, a killer rabbit and cow tossing.

"It was, in my opinion, the stupidest thing ever produced," he recalls. "There's no plot."

Persuaded over the summer to return, Aiken finally got it. "It's just completely off-base. So I went in and realized that. You have to go understanding that they even advertise it as being the silliest thing ever. It really is."

That's something Python purists will be happy to hear. Even so, Aiken is bracing for criticism from die-hard fans who can be more caustic than Simon, Randy and Paula.

"I'm anticipating and expecting some sort of fallout. I think it's a little bit different when someone who's never done Broadway before, who may be more well known in the pop world, comes in to Broadway," he says.

"There's always this skepticism that they've been brought in for the wrong reasons or they didn't pay their dues or they're not going to do their part well," he says.

"So I even told the choreographer and the director ahead of time, 'I don't want you to go easy on me. I want to do everything that everybody else does. Don't change things and make them easier for me,'" he adds, laughing. "I've since changed my mind."





Yahoo! News Updated On: 1/23/08 at 08:55 PM

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 8:59pm

Ladyofthe Lake - Considering the entire cast is different (Hadaray as Arthur, Deckman as Herbert+, Waddingham as Lady, Holmes as Lance, Aiken as Robin, etc.), I can actually see the producers inviting the critics back.

However, they won't. Simple reason why - they won their Tonys, made their money back, have a highly successful tour going around, and worldwide productions. They don't need to review it on Broadway. There's no reason to.

MissLesMis - the thing is that all the Clay fans managed to appear within the timespan of January 17 and now. They are not ordinary Broadway fans, they're Aiken fans who wanted to see if they could sway the opinions of a theater messageboard. I have not seen any of them criticize Aiken's performance in the least.

Having fans is always a good thing, but coming onto a messageboard to preach devotion to one person to a group that clearly doesn't want to hear it is a different story.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:00pm

Mikers - that's classic plagarism. Shorten the article and put it in quotes.

[Mikers]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:04pm

It isn't plagiarism if its clearly attributed to the author and source. "By MARK KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer"

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own.


Updated On: 1/23/08 at 09:04 PM

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:06pm

whats wrong with his face?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:06pm

Would it really harm you in any way shape or form to cut half of your post and post a link to the article?

[Mikers]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:13pm

There! Happy now?

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:14pm

Updated On: 5/8/09 at 09:14 PM

[MissLesMis]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:16pm

Having fans is always a good thing, but coming onto a messageboard to preach devotion to one person to a group that clearly doesn't want to hear it is a different story.

I didn't notice any preaching. Coming to the Broadwayworld board is not imposing on you. There are many threads here to discuss whatever show or performer you want. If a group doesn't want to talk Clay,nobody is twisting their arms. They are free to ignore this thread. That would be the gracious thing to do.

A couple friends whose opinion I trust implicitly are at the show tonight. I'm anxious to hear what they think.

I am too bdwaygirl.

[Mythus]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:17pm

Blurry? Yeah, me too.

Considering the entire cast is different (Hadaray as Arthur, Deckman as Herbert+, Waddingham as Lady, Holmes as Lance, Aiken as Robin, etc.), I can actually see the producers inviting the critics back.

Jonathan Hadary, Tom Deckman, and Rick Holmes have all been in the show for over a year...I assume you mean "different from the original cast" and not "different since Clay showed up".

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:30pm

Yes, that's what I meant.

[Mikers]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:41pm

Yes, that's what I meant.

I thought LePetiteFromage made that comment. Do you have multiple accounts and got your screen names confused?

[Ladyofthe Lake]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:50pm

Ladyofthe Lake - Considering the entire cast is different (Hadaray as Arthur, Deckman as Herbert+, Waddingham as Lady, Holmes as Lance, Aiken as Robin, etc.), I can actually see the producers inviting the critics back.

However, they won't. Simple reason why - they won their Tonys, made their money back, have a highly successful tour going around, and worldwide productions. They don't need to review it on Broadway. There's no reason to.

That makes perfect sense. However - and this is a genuine question, because I don't know the answer - is it possible or likely that Clay would have made the opportunity to be reviewed a condition of taking on the role? There is a certain prestige (for lack of a better word) to being seen as prominent enough to warrant a return visit from critics, but I don't know if Clay has that kind of clout. Of course that's a rhetorical question to some extent, as I'd wager that nobody privy to that kind of information would post about it here.

Or at least nobody should post about it here, unless it's Clay himself...

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:52pm

Scroll up and read again. Yankee was commenting on another post. Someone took his response for further clarification. Now who's trying to pick a fight?

[Mikers]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 9:57pm

Scroll up and read again. Yankee was commenting on another post. Someone took his response for further clarification. Now who's trying to pick a fight?

I'm so happy that you can read Yankee's mind, but for the rest of us, there's this great new invention called a quote. People use it when replying to a comment. A rather useful tool I'd say.

[Mythus]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 10:01pm

Yeah, Yankee was clearly responding to me.

And on the topic of inviting critics to the Broadway show again...I would be interested to see what they have to say - mostly about everyone but Clay Aiken, no offense meant to him. I loved the original cast, but Rick Holmes and Tom Deckman are amazing at their roles (even though no one will ever top Christian Borle, Tom comes as close as you can get).
Updated On: 1/23/08 at 10:01 PM

[Kelly2]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 11:12pm

I'll preface this by saying that I think Spamalot is a bad show. I don't like it, I don't find it to be all that funny, and I really just on all levels do not enjoy it. So, my comments may be colored by my strong dislike of the show. I saw it once with the full original cast, and then again tonight.

Clay Aiken...was, I guess, passable in this show in his part. No one who goes is going to see him as a weak link or as the obvious "odd man out" or anything. I just thought his performance was very very amateur, and unimpressive. He basically just made very muggy faces the whole time, and had this attitude, that, to me, read as "I'm Clay Aiken, and haha, aren't I SO funny?" which was both patronizing and annoying to me as an audience member. His voice sounded great, some of the parts they added for him were funny, he wasn't a bad dancer. I just got annoyed by the constant OBVIOUSLY muggy faces and...not much else in his performance.

Maybe I'm too critical. I didn't find him all that funny either. Also, his accent came and went. Some of his dialogue was said in a distinctly southern accent.

Updated On: 1/23/08 at 11:12 PM

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 11:38pm

Thank you, Kelly. I remember David Hyde Pierce playing Sir Robin as more understated than many of the other cast members, which balanced it out a bit, so it's not campy to the point of obnoxiousness.


I'm so happy that you can read Yankee's mind, but for the rest of us, there's this great new invention called a quote.

Um, I think you're the only person that had the reading comprehension problem. You're just pissy because YankeeFan told you to link to the article you illegally posted as per the board guidelines.

Updated On: 1/23/08 at 11:38 PM

[Kelly2]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 11:40pm

"Thank you, Kelly. I remember David Hyde Pierce playing Sir Robin as more understated than many of the other cast members, which balanced it out a bit, so it's not campy to the point of obnoxiousness."

I thought so too. The show definitely worked better with the original cast than it did with some of those onstage tonight, though I did thoroughly enjoy Tom Deckman and Hannah Waddingham.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 11:48pm

Yeah. I saw the original cast as well and Tim Curry was mugging, but that was appropriate for the king. Sir Robin? Not so much.

[Mrs.LinkLarkin2]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 11:48pm

I thought Clay did a great job! I saw him on Saturday. He has great comedic timing and always has. I used to be a hardcore Claymate, but now I'm more chill about it. The stage door was insanity. A couple hundred people were there I'd say.

[Marissa2]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 12:12am

I saw the show tonight, and really was shocked by Clay's performance. I'll admit now, I'm a huge fan of his, but refuse to be grouped together with some of the crazy Claymates... so I don't believe my opinion is TOO biased. I've only seen Spamalot once before, so I'm not THAT familiar with the show, but I really was completely surprised by Clay. His singing was great, but that wasn't any surprise. He danced well and his acting was pretty good.. his accent did come and go and some points but it wasn't too noticeable. If I had no idea who he was, I'm not sure if his performance would particularly stand out to me, but then again, I don't think Sir Robin is really a standout character in the show.

[Mikers]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 12:52am

Yeah. I saw the original cast as well and Tim Curry was mugging, but that was appropriate for the king. Sir Robin? Not so much.

I would say the opposite is true. The King maintains a necessary regal air of dignity and authority throughout.

[MassiveMeGo]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 12:59am

"I'll preface this by saying that I think Spamalot is a bad show. I don't like it, I don't find it to be all that funny, and I really just on all levels do not enjoy it. So, my comments may be colored by my strong dislike of the show. I saw it once with the full original cast, and then again tonight."

Throw Kelly2's review on the trash heap.

I hate Spamalot. I hate Clay Aiken. I spent money to go see it because I hate it so much.

Riiiiiight. We believe you.