A Week In The Life Of A London Theatregoer...In Las Vegas

"Viva Las Vegas, turnin' day into nighttime
Turnin' night into daytime
If you see it once
You'll never be the same again"

Elvis Presley's hymn to the excesses of Las Vegas holds true today as it did 46 years ago, but what does Vegas offer to this London theatre-goer? Escaping the cold of London, I spent the first week of the new decade in the bubble in the desert and this is what I found.

Starting with something familiar, I pitched up at The Excalibur Hotel on The Strip for "Defending the Caveman", a one-man show that has been knocking around theatres all over the world for some twenty years. Half-price ticket surrendered (never pay full price in Vegas, unless it's the weekend at peak season and you're very picky about what you want to see), I found myself in a room with tables laid out as they would be in a Bierkeller, like railway lines running towards the functional stage - but I soon found an empty booth (think Richie and Fonzie in Happy Days) and settled down to enjoy a evening full of gentle pisstaking, observing how men see women and how women see men. The show wasn't quite prehistoric, but it felt very dated for 2010 - and harmless enough for my jetlagged brain.

Next up was Cirque de Soleil's Love, their interpretation of Beatles songs performed in a specially built theatre in The Mirage Hotel. Even discounted, tickets were more than £100 a pair and all 2000+ seats were taken for the second performance of the evening. Every last cent of the audience's money was visible up there in the rafters, on the stage and below, as performers soared and dropped on ropes, skateboards, blades, trampolines etc etc etc. In this literally dizzying spectacular, the multitudinous cast poured energy and no little skill into their acrobatics and dance, spiced up by constant costume changes and an array of props that must fill an aircraft hangar. For this reviewer, the circus stuff got in the way of the superb sound system projecting those timeless songs, and the music got in the way of the tumblers and acrobats. Chocolate and cheese are both good to eat, but it's awkward if they are both piled high on the same plate - and that's what Love felt like: awkward. The audience, it must be said, was utterly transfixed.

Vegas isn't short of tribute acts, and I saw two such shows at the V-Theatre at Planet Hollywood Hotel. Hitsville brings to life the Motown Sound from Detroit, Michigan, thousands of miles north of Vegas, but still very much in the USA. And the show was a bit too American for my taste, a little too loud and a little too flamboyantly over the top, as the band and singers belted out (and I mean belted out) selected hits from Tina Turner, Martha and the Vandellas and others. My last evening in Vegas brought me all the way home to Liverpool, as the Fab Four took their turn in the V Theatre to knock out Beatles favourites in all the right outfits and with all the right accents. There was close observation evident in the band's performances and, in introducing Imagine complete with white piano, "John" gave a heartfelt tribute to The Man himself and his philosophy - not an easy case to make with the news agenda flooded with stories of terrorism and war.    

Vegas is a world within the world that is the USA. It is a city in which everything and everyone is on show. Buy in, and you'll have a crazy ride - stand off and critique its gaudiness, its wastefulness and its (often) lowest common denominator approach to culture, and you'll be right, but you've missed the point. So...Viva Las Vegas!