Always Look on the Bright Side...

For me, if it doesn't involve a six-hour plane ride, then it's usually not a vacation. There have been a few exceptions. One occurred a few months ago when my husband, Jim, and I visited New York.

We planned the trip in February after I somehow nabbed tickets to a popular Broadway play.

"You'll never get them," my friend Rosemary IM-ed from her Somers, New York, computer late one cold night. "It's sold out."

But, somehow I scored four Spamalot tickets for April 15, while we were still online. "How did that happen," we wondered through typewritten computer messages?

I'll tell you. And there is a lesson here for anyone with an extended family expecting them for a holiday dinner. It was Easter weekend, hence the seats.

No matter, we said, after Rosemary realized...just three weeks after the tickets were purchased.

Our journey started after a three-hour automobile ride from Boston to their home in Somers, with only four hours to spare before the show.

We managed to eat in a top-notch New York eatery before heading to Broadway and the long-awaited play.

For the amount of money we paid we should have been in the front row. Instead we sat in the mezzanine, a few rows from the back wall. No matter. Getting four consecutive seats was a miracle. Back or front, the entire audience was equally entertained with this "lovingly ripped off" version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I haven't laughed that loud and hard, or annoyed so many audience members, in years. I'd be embarrassed, but the other 1,499 people seemed to enjoy the play too.

Slapstick, silly, dark and sometimes senseless humor ensued from songs that included, "I Am Not Dead Yet" to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

The Knights of Ni, the shrubbery quest, and tales of the not-so-brave Sir Robin kept everyone’s attention and hit everyone’s funny bone. King Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, known in the not-so-Monty-Python world as Simon Russell Beale, held the audience in his hand like Excalibur, the holy sword bequeathed to the great king by the Lady of the Lake.

Sir Lancelot actually did enjoy dancing a lot and Sir Robin offered a unique take on Arthurian knights who needed a little convincing that there was - or was not - cause for the Middle Age crusades.

Just as Eric Idle, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin switched gears and played multiple characters, so did this ensemble, convincingly and sometimes not so convincingly, which made it all the more authentically Python-like.

If you have a weekend or a holiday then get thyself to New York for tickets to Spamalot.

And by the way, holidays are best for nabbing tickets...just don’t tell your family.