Python Musical Leads Nominations for Broadway Awards

As musicals go it's got the lot: King Arthur, knights of the round table, knights who say "Ni", an armour-clad chorus of tap dancers, and killer rabbits.

Now Spamalot, the musical based on the 1975 classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has 14 Tony award nominations.

The hit musical which pokes fun at medieval Britain led the hopefuls for Broadway's top honour after it wowed critics and audiences in the US. Since opening at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway on March 17 it has smashed box office records for a Broadway theatre.

The stage version has been lovingly ripped off from the film, according to its posters, but it has added a satirical swipe at modern musicals.

"The theatre's become tedious and boring and dull," Eric Idle told the US network CBS.

He said that Andrew Lloyd Webber "has been about the musical for the last 25 years. He's taken the comedy out of it.

"I think if you can laugh, have a song, laugh, have a song, that's the most agreeable form of entertainment you can have in the theatre."

Yesterday's Tony nominations include best musical, best book, best musical score and best direction. Tim Curry and Hank Azaria were nominated for best leading actor in a musical, while Michael McGrath, Christopher Sieber and Sara Ramirez were nominated for supporting roles.

Written by the 62-year-old Idle, Spamalot won four Outer Critics' Circle awards over the weekend, including best musical.

Other nominations for the Tony awards included John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer prizewinning play Doubt, about a nun who suspects a priest of child abuse. It was the most nominated play with eight, including best play and best actor and actress.

Two other musicals won 11 nominations apiece - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, based on the movie about a pair of con artists and starring John Lithgow, and The Light in the Piazza, the story of a mother and daughter visiting Italy in the 1950s.

The Australian actor Hugh Jackman will host the awards ceremony - Broadway's biggest annual event - on June 5 at New York's Radio City Music Hall.