That's with an o-U-r...

This weekend was British bliss. Friday I went to see Spamalot with Katie and Dustin and Sunday night was all about the second installment of Pride and Predjudice, don't you know.

It covered quite the spectrum of performing arts from the other side of the pond, but each was equally "brilliant."

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"Fetchez la vache!"

I don't quite know the number of times I've seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Does anyone? I just know that I compulsively start quoting it and little tears of laughter start streaming from the corners of my eyes if the slightest thing reminds me of it.

Apparently this is the same reaction many others have and many of those others were seated around me Friday night at Spamalot. As a scene would change or a character come on stage you could hear giggles being stifled and a low murmur as lines were preemptively recited. When the French solider popped up on stage, the audience erupted in applause before he even had a chance to say anything.

I don't know about Katie, but Dustin and I certainly took part in the giggling and the quoting. She was probably thankful that he and I sat next to each other and didn't put her in the middle of two grown people who instantly reverted to being cheeky 15 year olds.

I visited the official Spamalot website and discovered that you can purchase Killer Rabbit Slippers with "sharp and pointy teeth." But they're like $40 and Elsie would quickly eat them.

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“When they had to do another take,
did you have to take the wet shirt off
and then put on another dry one on?”

... asked the fictional Bridget Jones when interviewing the "real" Colin Firth in the book, Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason.

OK, so it's funnier when you read the whole excerpt and know that she's supposed to be interviewing him about his role in a completely different movie, but keeps going back to the "Mr. Darcy swimming in the pond" scene from the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice.

The BBC Pride and Prejudice came out in 1995 right before I became friends with a large group of people from Ireland who had just moved to "the states" and it was all the girls in the group would talk about. Then I read the Bridget Jones books where they too obsessed. Then I saw the first Bridget Jones movie with the big irony / inside joke of Colin Firth cast as Mark Darcy. A very art imitates life imitates art twist that I think Jane Austen would have enjoyed.

So of course I've been enjoying PBS's "The Complete Jane Austen." I'm a total sucker for that period and style of English literature. Traipsing 'cross the grounds of country manors in empire waist dresses and ballet flats with men in top hats and riding boots. If it weren't for lack of things like gender equality, indoor plumbing, and anesthesia, a girl could get used to the idea of life like that.

Jane Austen is the epitome of this style and of telling a love story with a bit of an edge to it. Elizabeth Bennett is the epitome of those stories' heroines. Snarky, sarcastic, pessimistic, jaded, principled and stubborn. She's willing to wait for an offer of marriage based on love and to just the right person. A unique choice for some women at that time and a choice that meant she risked not only suffering the label of Tragic Spinster, but risked spending the rest of her days in squalid destitution.

Kind of puts my fear of becoming The Crazy Old Neighborhood Cat Lady in perspective.

The first installment of Pride and Prejudice was a bit dull, but this past Sunday was much better. Not only do we get to see a soggy Colin Firth strolling through the meadows of Pemberly, but we get to watch as Mr. Darcy's cold exterior starts to crack. Sigh.

Now, if only I could watch the finale in some killer rabbit slippers...