Wild west: Visiting the real Deadwood

With its neat, paved streets, sturdy, handsome buildings and laid-back, civilized air, Deadwood today is a lot different to how I'd envisaged it. Then again, most places have changed a fair bit since the 1870s. That's the era in which Deadwood – the noughties HBO TV drama – was set, capturing viewers' attention over three slow-burn seasons with the shenanigans of this then-lawless "Wild West" frontier town, which sprang up illegally on native American lands after gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The show had a colorful cast of characters, including Al Swearengen, a saloon and brothel kingpin played with spiky relish by British actor  Ian McShane, and fittingly, on our visit to Deadwood – part of a seven-day Spotlight on South Dakota trip – were shown around by another larger-than-life local personality. Brimming with energy and anecdotes, Dave is the wise-cracking guide of Kevin Costner's Original Deadwood tour – one of the various ventures the Hollywood star got involved in after shooting his 1990 magnum opus, Dances with Wolves, in South Dakota.