Galavant

It truly is a royal jewel, when one finds an art piece so cleverly and beautifully made. ABC’s (Disney’s) Galavant is an amazing, funny, and clever musical comedy. With wonderful actors, music, costumes and locations, it’s a wonderful show to watch. It’s creative, witty, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Understanding their own flaws and failures; making jokes about their own characters, actors, plotlines, and the network and ratings. It understands how viewers (their audience or not) think and act and know when/if/why an audience will or will not be tuning in to view it. Galavant sets a unique criteria level difficult to surpass.

Taking advantage of the clichés and stereotypes of fairy tales, the Medieval Times and of the modern day world, Galavant succeeds brilliantly at making a person understand and admire its material. A joke may appear ‘unfunny’ or not funny enough to laugh out loud in stomach cramping  way, but it invokes an “Oh, that’s interesting” or an “that was clever, I see why they did that”. Unlike so many fairy tales, the pilot episode of the series sees the protagonist hero Galavant (brilliantly played by Joshua Sasse), disregarded by the woman he loves (Madalena, played by the talented Mallory Jansen) and came to rescue from the kidnapping and forced marriage to King Richard, a fragile and misunderstood king rather than evil (played by the smart and playful Timothy Omundson) and his personal henchman and best friend Gareth (the always convincing in any role he plays, Vinnie Jones). Choosing fame and fortune over love, Madalena with little if any concern for Galavant’s feelings marries King Richard.

Heartbroken Galavant falls into a self-pitying and selfish lifestyle, no longer being the hero everyone so fondly knew to be Galavant, but a bitter man closed off to anyone in need of help, and neglectful of personal hygine—and this is all within the first ten minutes! Then entering the loyal and smart mouthed squire Sid (Luke Youngblood—from Harry Potter—and yes there are Harry Potter references)

and a brave, loyal, and bossy (and especially annoying to Galavant) Princess Isabella Maria Lucia Elizabetta of Valencia (yes a royal with a long and difficult name to pronounce, played by the lovely Karen David). Who yes is somewhat bossy and snarky like other Disney Princesses we’ve seen BUT has so much kindness, concern for others, a sense of humor, emotional depth and conflict throughout her story line that make her so lovable and different than the other snarky Disney princesses—not to mention her skills in combat. Unlike other Disney Princesses, Isabella’s stress and problems are far more excessive than that of Cinderella or Ariel. Isabella is being blackmailed by King Richard to lie to the hero, or her parents will be killed.

Other great commentary comes from the main characters breaking the fourth wall, Catching Everyone Up. The show’s references of satires to films (The Princess Bride), and musical numbers (love ballads, arpeggios), and an iconic pop number from Greece. as well as comedy on today’s acronyms, “The Dark Dark Evil Way” is called the “D’DEW”. And personally, one of my favorite aspects of character development and storytelling is the relationship between Galavant and Isabella. After tolerating one another and their most irritating traits, learning from one another, and developing a friendship and respect for one another, they admit to themselves and each other that they have indeed fallen in love. Love is not easy nor perfect, and sometimes there are times when you and your loved one just feel like “you want to smack their stupid face”. Instead of the perfect magical first kiss (as Disney is especially known for); Galavant and Isabella have a terrible first kiss, something that people do in fact experience. The too awkward timing, the pressure, the wrong moment, how one thinks this kiss will be vs. the kiss itself. This is a creative, emotional, original, magical romance that is understandable and relatable—and to have that in a musical comedy is not expected and makes it all the more gratifying and worthy of applause.

From the writers of Monty Python, and with the beautiful music writing from the talented Alan Menken, Galavant is an always brilliant, always clever, and always a fairy tale.