'Shatner's World': Star treks to Broadway

The last time anyone -- at least anyone who still watches ads on TV -- saw William Shatner, he was going over a steep cliff in a burning tour bus while hawking discount online travel deals.

But, hey, here he is on Broadway, clearly less surprised than we are to be filling 100 minutes with tales of the strange, mildly amusing twists in his long career. Given the title -- "Shatner's World: We Just Live in It" -- no one can feign shock at his affection for his own self and his assumption that, given the improbable resilience of his celebrity, others share it.

This is a stand-up comedy bio, fairly tightly structured for an upcoming tour, with a little self-mocking absurdity and an ego-driven dismissal of self-consciousness. A smooth raconteur with that identifiable voice, he likes anecdotes about himself, naturally, his early stints on Broadway and his bareback riding in "Alexander the Great." (He loves animals, especially horses, a likable quality he mentions more than most of his four marriages.)

He also likes showing greatest-hits clips of himself -- giving an acceptance speech for an honorary degree in his native Canada, enjoying Christopher Plummer and Patrick Stewart talk about him on his cable interview series, trying to make George Lucas smile at his "Star Trek"/ "Star Wars" shtick on a program honoring Lucas.

Shatner, who will be 81 next month, looks nothing like the hunk with the Tab Hunter curl in the photo from his early years at the classical Stratford Festival and is almost unrecognizable from the wholesomely dashing Captain Kirk from those three short but inconceivably influential years of "Star Trek" on TV.

But the Emmy-winning actor-author-self-merchandiser is nothing if not deft at deflecting the negative. He comments about his girth before we can think it. You call him a has-been? He makes a hit satirical album called "Has Been." You dismiss him as a huckster? He sells his kidney stone for $75,000 and gives the money to Habitat for Humanity.

He dances with an ergonomic office chair under a sky of stars and a big round screen that looks like a paperweight from a planetarium. He may not have gone where no one has gone before, but, clearly, he likes where he has been.

WHAT "Shatner's World: We Just Live in It"

WHERE Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., Manhattan; through March 4

INFO $39-$126.50; 212-239-6200; shatnersworld.com

BOTTOM LINE As advertised -- Shatner on Shatner, deft and mildly amusing.