I saw five and ¼ shows while I was in town (more on that in a moment) and if this was a competition the clear winner would be Monty Python’s Spamalot, now playing at Wynn Las Vegas. This Tony-Award winner is a deliriously silly and endlessly entertaining bit of madness about the knights of King Arthur’s court on a madcap mission to find the Holy Grail. Most everything you remember from the movie is there – the flying cows, the killer beast that guards the cave (don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t seen it), the puns, the jokes, the pratfalls, and the absurdist, almost surreal humor all set to an eminently hummable score. Although shortened to 90 minutes or so and tweaked with some Vegas-specific gags (think Excalibur), I didn’t think it suffered in the translation at all. The cast is terrific but this is a show that depends more on the strength of the material than any name-brand actors in the cast so I think it could have a pretty long life here no matter who is in the lead roles.

The same can’t be said of The Producers, another Tony-Award winning Broadway transplant now playing at Paris Las Vegas. This is a terrific musical, based on the Mel Brooks movie about a pair of producers trying to put on the worst show in history. It is funny and filled with great music, but it is one of those shows that seems to depend heavily on the people in the lead roles, most often associated with the guys who originated them on Broadway and in the feature film version, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. The Broadway vets currently in the roles in Vegas are terrific, but there’s something about the frenetic energy and pacing of the show, especially as it too has been crammed into 90 minutes that makes it a bit exhausting especially if you’ve seen either the show or the movie. If you haven’t seen either, go see this version. If you have, well, go see Spamalot.

While you’re there you could pick up tickets for Le Reve, also playing at Wynn Las Vegas. When I first saw this show in 2005, I liked it but thought the Cirque du Soleil style imagery and acts were derivative and at times disturbing. Since then the show and the theater in which it is housed have gotten makeovers and this time I really enjoyed it. The main character, a person who falls asleep and wanders through a dream world, was a man but is now a woman and that seems to have made a major difference, dialing down the (perceived or otherwise) misogyny and amping up the romanticism. The water based stunts (diving, swimming, acrobatics above and around) have been streamlined as well and while there are still a few disconcerting visuals they seem to have a much more comforting overall context.

I also love the new VIP seats – big plushy chairs that ring the top row of the theater with built in monitors to watch the action above, backstage, and underwater. It’s difficult at first to get used to it – as is the case with most of these types of shows there is too much going on at once anyway to catch it all, but once you get the hang of when to look at the video screens (most notably when someone hits the water from a high distance) it really adds to the show. Plus the seats come with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries complimentary in the price of the ticket. Since those go for roughly the same cost as the top tickets at the similar water-based show O at Bellagio, which don’t come with booze and treats, I’m going to have to kick the advantage over here.

Toni Braxton has defied extremely negative early reviews to become quite the draw at The Flamingo and for good reason. She’s got a great voice, looks fantastic, and is a hell of an entertainer even if you don’t know her music all that well, but none of those are the good reason I mentioned. Instead it is her performance attitude, seizing the mantle of Vegas sex kitten from An-Margret and reinventing it for the new millennium. Don’t worry, there’s nothing even R-rated in this show – instead it is Toni as vamp, vixen, and naughty girl who likes to croon from laps of handsome male audience members, after politely asking permission from accompanying females of course. On the night I was there she even got the mayor of a major southern city up on stage for a little hip shaking and the whole thing was delightful.

Another delight was found at the new Planet Hollywood theater hosting Stomp Out Loud, a bigger, bolder, badder (in a good way) version of the long-running Stomp series. This one was not much different in concept from its origins, with a cast of people creating music from found objects like brooms, dust pans, boxes, newspapers, water jugs, pipes, lighters, and of course the signature trash can lids. It’s inspiring to watch these people create intricately crafted symphonies out of little more than trash and the fact that the cast is a melting pot of races, genders, ages, and body types makes this feel like art the way it was meant to be: inclusive.

So that’s five shows. Oh, yeah, almost forgot. The quarter.

I saw Steve Wyrick at The Sahara years ago and didn’t enjoy his show. I’m not a fan of what I call “whirling blades of death” magic, where the illusionist straps himself to something sharp and tries to make the audience believe there is some danger involved in what he’s doing. Will he be sliced to bits by the whirling blades of death?! Well, no. And so I am bored.

Wyrick has a new theater with his name on it at the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood and so I went back to check out if the new environs changed my opinion of the show at all. Unfortunately it didn’t. The performance started almost 30 minutes late without explanation and just as I was getting ready to leave in frustration. I watched the first four tricks, recognized them (or versions of them) from the original show at The Sahara (including one with actual whirling blades of death – a mock jet turbine engine), and decided I had seen enough especially since staying for the entire show would’ve made me 30 minutes late for the next appointment I had to keep.

Next time start on time and maybe I’ll be in a better mood.

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Question: Are there any good museums in Las Vegas?

Answer: It kind of depends on your definition of museum. If you are looking for a traditional experience, there are a couple of fantastic facilities in town.

The Las Vegas Art Museum is a few miles from The Strip but totally worth the drive even though the facility itself is small. It is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute so the exhibits, events, and showings are all first rate running the gamut from minimalism to whatever the opposite of minimalism is.

The Las Vegas Natural History Museum is a fun facility showcasing everything from dinosaurs to local flora and fauna. Much of the focus is on the Nevada region but they have a wide enough view of things to make it worth the while.

If you’re looking for more local color, check out The Clark County Heritage Museum, a fascinating complex that helps to explain how the city became what it is, from its early railroad days into the gambling era and more. They even have fully restored homes and buildings from the early days of the city on display.

If you are simply an art lover and don’t care about the size of the building in which it rests there are two terrific galleries right on The Strip. The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art features rotating exhibits of all different styles and the Guggenheim/Hermitage gallery at The Venetian boasts works from the parent museums in New York and Russia, some of which are rarely seen outside of those particular venues.

And if you’ve got kids you absolutely can’t miss the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum, a fantastic interactive facility near Downtown that explores nature, science, and every day life in a way that children can understand.

Grown-ups will love the Atomic Testing Museum, another interactive facility devoted to the history of the nuclear testing that occurred just outside of Las Vegas back in the fifties.

But of course this is Vegas, so if you don’t mind broadening your definition of museum there’s always the Liberace Museum. It should be on the “must” list of every Las Vegas visitor.

You can get more information on these and other museums plus other great things to do in Las Vegas in the Attractions section of Vegas4Visitors.com.

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