Marcus Brigstocke so enjoyed playing King Arthur in Spamalot that he asked for the run to be extended, he tells Steve Pratt.

THE voice of God came from shadows at the back of the circle and spoke to Marcus Brigstocke. “He won’t go,” says Brigstocke, turning to address the intruder. “Do you want to be in the show. Who do you want to be?

Lady of the Lake again? Be gentle on the kiss.”

He’s joking and it isn’t really God, but a man who plays God in the Monty Python musical Spamalot. It’s Eric Idle, the Python performer who turned a film – Monty Python And The Holy Grail – into an award-winning stage show.

He’s in Manchester during the early part of the run to see for himself how the production has turned out and, much to Brigstocke’s relief, has given both him and the show the thumbs-up.

“I hang out with Monty Python,” says Brigstocke, as we continue the interview in the circle seats after Idle has left. “I watched it as a kid and I liked And Now For Something Completely Different but, if I’m honest, it wasn’t until I was a teenager that I went, ‘aah, I see what they’re doing here’. Then I watched the films in my early teens and thought they were amazing.

“I must have worn out my VHS copy of each of the three films. The one I know the least seems to be people’s favourite, Life Of Brian.

But The Holy Grail and Meaning Of Life I’ve watched endlessly.”

What he likes particularly about Python is something you rarely see now – stuff that doesn’t work. “It’s because they’re really going for it, really trying stuff,” he says.

“Now if they think it’s not going to work, they’ll swear or there’ll be some act of violence or a costume or a catchphrase or whatever. You just got a sense with Monty Python of them being out there and really trying something.

“You don’t see that bravery so much any more. People have got their catchphrases and that’s what they’re going to do. I don’t know if I was able to analyse it that much as a teenager, but just knew I was seeing something very exciting.”

Brigstocke first got noticed in 1996 by winning the BBC New Comedian Award at the Edinburgh Festival. These days, he writes and performs, as a comedian and an actor, but playing King Arthur in Spamalot is a “big departure”

for him. “I never thought they’d ask me to do it, not only never having sung before, but having been for my entire life terrified of singing in front of everybody. I was convinced I couldn’t do it,” he says.

“I was introduced to the director and they got me up. I did some scales at the piano and they went, ‘oh, that will be fine’. And that helped me. Apparently, I was on pitch and I said, okay I don’t even know what that means.”

The acting bit he’s done before. He was in the costume comedy School For Scandal, at Edinburgh, did lots of plays at uni, followed by sketch shows and character stuff on TV, radio and live over the past 15 years.

“So I’ve kept my hand in where acting is concerned.

Obviously, this is a slightly different beast being in a touring production, but I’ve always considered I’m not just a stand-up or comedian but a writer-actor-comedian. A performer, a tart is the best description.

“Fundamentally, I’m a tart in that I really like being on stage. I really, really enjoy it, be it stand-up or recording a radio show in front of an audience. It gives me an immense amount of pleasure and seems to please audiences.”

He liked it from when he was a kid. He calls himself a “real f***-up” at school. One school used it as leverage against him, saying if he misbehaved they wouldn’t let him be in things “which is a stupid way of going about things”, he says.

“It was the one thing I was good at. I knew from school that I really liked it and had an ability such as it is, maybe not as a great actor or great performer, but I’ve always had a sense of pleasure from working with an audience and I think the audience picks up from that, that someone is pleased to be there.”

Working on Spamalot tested him a lot. He felt different to others in the cast who were all music theatre trained. “Frighteningly brilliant and keen as mustard,” he says. “They turned up on day one all off script, they could all harmonise, they could all this, that and the other.

“I found rehearsals hard. I came home and, for the first time in a long time, had read doubts whether I would pull this off.” Being told that reviews compared him to Rex Harrison, who famously spoke the songs rather than sang them in My Fair Lady, didn’t help. He’d worked hard and told people he wasn’t going to do a Rex Harrison.

“I thought I’m either going to do this or I’m not. I didn’t want to be a passenger – the bloke on the poster who puts a few bums of seats but can’t quite do it, but it’s nice to see him have a go. That’s not nearly good enough for me, I have to be able to do this properly.

“I was more self-conscious with the cast than the audience, but by the time I reached the first performance I was okay, I can do this.”

He was enjoying the experience so much he extended his run in the touring show, opting to stay until November instead of leaving in August.

“It’s a blast so I’m staying. When I signed up I thought after 12 weeks doing the same thing I’d be suicidal. I got a few weeks in and realised that the ending was coming way too soon, so I’ve extended.”

■ Spamalot: York Grand Opera House, November 22-27. Tickets 0844-847-2322 and grandoperahouseyork.org.uk