‘Vegas! The Show’ is a sampler platter of Strip productions

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 | 2:42 p.m.

Vegas! The Show: Friday through Wednesday, 7 & 9 p.m., $87-$107; Saxe Theater inside Planet Hollywood’s Miracle Mile; 866-932-1818

If you can’t make it to all of Las Vegas’ shows, try hitting Vegas! The Show—the city’s best sampler platter of Strip productions and artists, past and present. It’s producer David Saxe’s whirling tribute to the city’s long history of top-notch entertainment. Sampled are the legends who have headlined in Vegas, either in extended or limited engagements: Elvis, the Rat Pack, Tom Jones, Louis Prima and Keely Smith, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Liberace (in marionette form), Sonny & Cher, Elton John, showgirls that remind one of Folies and Jubilee!, and a sleight-of-hand artist (Joseph Gabriel) who works the Liberace puppet and sends his macaw parrot soaring into the audience.

The rapid-paced, 90-minute show features six vocalists, along with dancers who have appeared in such Strip productions as Fantasy and Peepshow. It boomerangs without warning, jumping from the Rat Pack to Jones to Elton without pause. But that’s not a bad thing. Saxe brings the whole menu, except for one item. “Cirque du Soleil is great,” he says, “but to me, it’s not Vegas.” It’s not Vegas! The Show either.