Anyone familiar with my theatre-going habits will probably be surprised I went to see Spamalot, it being a musical. But I was very kindly offered the tickets and I like to branch out every now and again and test my prejudices.

The first thing to say about Spamalot is that a lot of the audience seemed to be enjoying it (as were the actors who looked close to corpsing a couple of times). And I did laugh two or three times - there were two and a half good 'sketches'.

I say sketches because the story is kind of irrelevant, a lose frame on which to hang a number of set ups for songs and comic scenarios. And this is fine but I was expecting the comedy to be a little more biting and satirical rather than just plain silly. OK so I'll always laugh at a fart joke, and I did but much of the humour just felt old school and hackneyed.