Entertainment

‘FUTURE’ KING GOES BACK TO ‘CAMELOT’

WE can just imagine how the casting went for the New York Philharmonic’s “Camelot”:

Wise King Arthur? Get Gabriel Byrne. A hunk who can sing, for Lancelot? Grab that smokin’ Nathan Gunn. Wacky, dragon-chasing King Pellinore? Paging Christopher Lloyd!

The “Back to the Future” star is back for Lerner and Loewe’s glorious knights-of-the-round-table musical – replete with sword fighting, onstage musicians and the Queens-accented Fran Drescher as Morgan Le Fey. The semi-staged romp runs through Saturday at Avery Fisher Hall and airs tonight at 8 on PBS.

Don’t expect Lloyd to sing, even though he’s tempted.

“The music is just so romantic, so beautiful,” he croaks of such standards as “If Ever I Should Leave You” and the title song.

“It’s like I’m part of the audience every time it’s time for a song!”

It’s a homecoming of sorts for Lloyd, a former Connecticut preppie who started in the theater longing to make the leap to film.

When he did, it was as an inmate of the asylum in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” with Jack Nicholson, an actor Lloyd not only admired but also found a hoot to work with.

“One of the cast members got married on the set at 1 in the morning, and Nicholson arranged for a mariachi band,” he recalls. “We had a lot of fun.”

At 69, with iron-gray hair and enviable biceps, he’s still stopped on the street by “Back to the Future” fans who ask him to say “Great Scott!” à la Doc Brown, while others hail him for his “Taxi” role as the perpetually perplexed Jim Ignatowski: (“What does a yellow light mean?” “Slow down.” “Whhaaat does a yellllow light meeeean?”).

Who knows? Maybe when they’ve caught his Pellinore, they’ll ask to see his sword.