Book by Jeffrey Lane. Music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Directed by Max Reimer. A Playhouse Theatre Company production. At the Vancouver Playhouse on Thursday, November 26. Continues until December 27

If you like your holiday punch spiked, then Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the show for you. The Playhouse production of this wickedly funny musical is spot-on.

The story, which is based on the 1988 movie starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, is about duelling con artists on the French Riviera. Lawrence Jameson (played here by Andrew Wheeler) is the suave older pro who seduces women and convinces them they look better without their jewellery. When an upstart American hustler named Freddy Benson (Josh Epstein) stumbles into Lawrence’s territory, the two set a wager and agree that the loser will leave town. The challenge is to see who can be the first to swindle pretty, young American heiress Christine Colgate out of $50,000. Then they up the bet: if Freddy can seduce Christine, he’s the victor. (Lawrence has started to fall for the heiress at this point.)

The pleasures in this show range from the irreverent to the outrageous. Jeffrey Lane, who penned the book, and David Yazbek, who wrote the music and lyrics, relentlessly send up the sentimentality that fuels so much musical theatre. Freddy attempts to win Christine’s heart by pretending to be a paraplegic American soldier. In the faux-inspirational ballad “Love Is My Legs”, Freddy learns to walk, lurching across Christine’s room and aiming straight for her bed. In “Great Big Stuff”, Freddy dreams about being as rich as Lawrence: “The Islands in the winter / The Hamptons in the summer / The fashion plate I date’ll give me / Hummers in my Hummer.” Dirty Rotten Scoundrels also plays with the physical conventions of theatre. During a scene change, Muriel (Gabrielle Jones), a middle-aged woman Lawrence is fleecing, looks around and gasps, “Is this balcony moving?”

Director Max Reimer’s production rocks. Epstein is splendid as Freddy. In “Great Big Stuff”, which is his first number, he brings the house down, funking things up like a rapper and sliding down Lawrence’s banister. Amazingly, Epstein brings enormous energy to the show without ever seeming to work at it. The ever-so-slightly melancholy sophistication that Wheeler brings to Lawrence is exactly right. And Wheeler, who is primarily known as a dramatic actor, can really sing. Elena Juatco is charmingly geeky as Christine, and she’s got a big, powerful pop voice. David Marr, who plays Lawrence’s sidekick, André, has a wonderful time with his Inspector Clouseau French accent. And Jones is swaggeringly brassy as Muriel.

The set and costumes have been rented from the Broadway touring production, which means local artists lost out on work. Still, the show looks handsome. And under Steve Thomas’s musical direction, the band sounds swell.

Merry larcenous Christmas.