Witty and inventive or silly and gimmicky according to one’s taste, director Rupert Goold’s ‘takes’ on the classics have included an RSC Tempest translated to an Arctic wasteland and a Turandot for ENO set in a Chinese restaurant. Now we have a Merchant of Venice relocated to a modern-day Las Vegas casino, a location that fits very well for a play in which so many characters are out for that life-changing big win.

It is to the screenwriter John Logan that the concept is owed, as is acknowledged in a programme note. The creator of Star Trek Nemesis worked on it it as a vehicle for Patrick Stewart — Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise — who now gives us his Shylock on the RSC’s main stage. It is a curious irony that this key figure in the project is supplying a measured, dignified and at times deeply moving performance that sits slightly uneasily with all the comic capers going on about him.

These include the hilarious transformation of the Belmont casket scenes into a cheesy TV game show called Destiny. Its hosts (and in one case main prize) are Portia (Susannah Fielding) and her maid Nerissa (Emily Plumtree), both looking and talking like bewigged Dixie Chicks. Suitor Morocco (David Okonokpono) is a rapping black boxer and Arragon (Jason Morell) a caricature Spaniard with huge sombrero and drooping moustache. To these stock comic characters are added a Launcelot Gobbo (Jamie Beamish) who doubles as an Elvis impersonator and a cigar-chomping Solanio (Aidan Kelly) in classic US gangster style.

Sir Patrick, in fact, is not alone in his dignity. Scott Handy’s memorable Antonio is a world-weary figure who we can feel pretty certain has been given a right old run-around by boyfriend Bassanio (Richard Riddell). The loan he seeks to finance his wooing expedition to Belmont is evidently not the first such sub he has sought. When he offers his two arrows analogy — concerning the firing of a second to retrieve a lost first — many will at once think more readily of throwing good money after bad.

The sum involved in all the trouble is $3m — Shakespeare’s three thousand ducats not exactly being legal tender in modern day America. But then, of course, we are not really in Las Vegas, witness the references to other Italian cities and the ‘Venice’ obstinately present in the play’s title.

But let us not quibble. This Merchant of Venice is a hugely entertaining romp, with all longueurs eliminated despite a three-hours-plus running time (all the songs!). If the Goold touch can be seen to fail (and I think it does slightly) it is in the trial scene. Portia/Balthazar — by now a much sharper, more intelligent figure — is shown to have a sudden brainwave over the case-clinching “not one drop of Christian blood” injunction. By then Shylock has had his knife poised for some time over the bare breast of winch-hauled Antonio, leading all to wonder why he has failed to make the fatal plunge.

Continues until September 26 Tickets: www.rsc.org.uk or 0844 800 1110.