Spamalot, Playhouse Theatre, review - Telegraph When did I realise I was God? Peter O'Toole asked out loud in the film adaptation of Peter Barnes's play The Ruling Class. Well, I was praying and I suddenly realised I was talking to myself. For my part, the realisation came when I saw myself projected up onto a huge screen on the stage at the Playhouse Theatre, wagging an admonishing celestial finger at King Arthur (a suitably awestruck Richard McCourt). Having sat in judgment on others in this column for almost 10 years, I shall spare you the unedifying spectacle of my now sitting in judgment upon my own performance as God in Spamalot. All I will say is the role was a step up from the mere waiter that I played in Top Hat in September. And whatever might be said about its technical competence, it at least raising a hefty sum for the Telegraph Christmas Appeal (every ticket booked through http://boxoffice.telegraph.co.uk/tickets/spamalot adds another £5 to the Telegraph Christmas Appeal kitty). It is a clever ruse of the producers to get someone new to fill their God slot each week - it is an effortless little gig, filmed in advance - and I am sure it has been a big factor in keeping the show fresh, and maybe even getting some punters back for second helpings. Such acting greats as Simon Callow, Hugh Bonneville and, yes, even Barbara Windsor had all played the role before me, and I am sure a lot more proficiently. I had begun to wonder if it was still possible to talk about such a thing as the British sense of humour. My Spamalot experience has therefore come at the right time for me. If the show demonstrates nothing else, it's that this priceless commodity is as schoolboyishly alive and well as ever. There are a lot of great visual gags in the show - "lovingly ripped off" from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, according to the programme - and a lot of smut and sacrilege. I have to confess that there is a four-letter word and a profanity in the lines that God gets to utter, if it is possible, of course, for God to be profane. Sir Lancelot (Conran House) turns out to be somewhat stereotypically gay, and it is xenophobic to boot. Its big, redeeming feature is, however, its fundamental good-naturedness. I laughed like a howler monkey at the sight of the corpse that refuses to be dead; the Dave Spart-like peasant who tells Arthur we are "an autonomous collective"; the obstreperous Frenchmen who use flatulence as a weapon of warfare; and the Black Knight who regards the loss of his limbs as no more than an occupational hazard. Seditiously, the show, created by Eric Idle and originally directed by Mike Nichols, also takes the mickey out of musicals. There is a great tune called The Song That Goes Like This, a dig at Andrew Lloyd Webber's "paint by numbers" approach to the genre with a verse that announces "now we can go straight into the middle-eight." With my God only appearing, alas, in the first act, I found myself singing along too to The Diva's Lament, the mournful wail of a performer (in this case the lovely Carley Stenson) who wonders why more has not been made of her character. Still, as Spamalot's best-known song - a favourite at funerals - says: "Always look on the bright side of life." In the depressing darkness of January, this show is a beacon of light. To Feb 22; spamalotwestend.co.uk; 0844 871 7631. For information on the Telegraph Christmas Appeal, visit telegraph.co.uk/news/telegraphchristmasappeal