The Phantom of The Phantom in Vegas….

There is a point in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, of course, when the show-within-the-show is suddenly halted by the interventions of the Opera Ghost when the casting approval he has sought hasn’t been met (a classic version, no doubt, of the estates who control rights over productions today), and he sets both the chandelier and the diva’s principal vocals swaying, as well as brutally hanging a stage hand. (Oops, perhaps I should have put in a spoiler alert here, but after 21 years in the West End, I suspect you know the scene by now). The opera managers run about frantically and tell us the show will resume soon with Christine Daae in the lead role, after a ballet interlude to keep us entertained.

But at last night’s performance of Phantom – the Las Vegas Spectacular (as the special version of the show specially made for Vegas has been renamed, expanding the physical production in scale – there are four chandeliers floating over the audience at the beginning, that then assemble to make one! – but reducing it in length to a more easily digestible 95-minute one-act show), this scene was prefigured, about a half an hour in, by an alarm call and flashing lights throughout the theatre, with the public address system announcing: “The alarm you have heard is part of the hotel’s early alert system. The reason for the alarm is being investigated. We will keep you advised.”

There was no sudden rush for the exits, and most of the audience dutifully stayed put until, eventually, the emergency lights were disabled and another announcement was made: “We are announcing an all-clear.”

Lloyd Webber cynics (and I’m not one, I hasten to add) might suggest that an early alert system should always be in place against the sudden arrival of his crashing chords and lush strings. But it was fascinating to watch this musical again in such a cleverly stripped back way – the press material promises that the show “includes every song from the original” – and I honestly can’t say I missed anything.

Even the long interruption had a familiar feeling. The first night of the current revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the West End was also famously interrupted when the set broke down and there was a 20-minute pause. Perhaps there was another ghost at work there….