Las Vegas Show Review: Second City Was Second Rate

I’ll keep this one short, ‘cause really, I’m not that much into spending a lot of time tearing something up. That’s just not very rewarding to me. But still, I must share about my disappointment with the Second City performance at The Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas.

Second City bills themselves as improv comedy troupe, but really, there was hardly any improv at all. Mostly sketches. The Second City website proclaims “Sin City’s favorite improv comedy troupe launches sixth season of side-splitting laughs”. Huh? Our group’s few and far between laughs were incidentally prompted by the painful attempts of the comedians to keep a straight face during certain skits. The few short minutes where actual improv took place were good but too rare.

I do believe that the actors that went on that night are truly talented. My favorite was Katie Neff, who might actually look like a normal person off stage when she isn’t contorting her features into some painful expression. She was quite the bundle of energy. Unfortunately for the group of them, the sketches did not do them justice. They were “professionally” executed, and transitions were excellent, but the problem was that most sketches were ultimately boring or did not touch on that all important “nerve”. It just did not resonate and fell flat.

So, my bottom line recommendation for this show is that unless you are a talent scout searching for new comedic talent, you might not want to attend unless the show is comp-ed. And even then, when you think about all the other great venues in town, why waste time on mediocre sketch comedy?

Besides that, the Flamingo is a lamentably boring property, stuck somewhere in 1985. I don’t understand. With all the razzmatazz of surrounding hotels and casinos, you’d think that The Flamingo would have thought about stepping up their game, no?

Not wanting to stick around the uninspiring premises for our après-show
drink, we walked 2 minutes to the Barbary Coast. This hotel & casino is also definitely stuck in time, but at least it has a patina and an indescribable tacky charm. We sat at Bill’s Gambling Hall Saloon listening to a decent jazz band. The best part? Our drink tab for four totaled an astounding $14 (our reflex was “what? Did they forget a zero?”) and, even at our no-longer-a-spring-chicken tender age, we were still the youngest ones on the premises. That part felt great!!!