What: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

When: Tonight at 8 p.m.

Where: Hamilton Place

Tickets: 905-526-6777

In a world of Amazing Dreamcoats and preening Broadway Cats, it's good to find a tougher, rougher musical like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

On Broadway, this musical treatment of the hit Hollywood film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin was a smash.

Why? Because it's a smart antidote to all those Disney kiddie shows. It is in fact a welcome adult alternative.

On the road now, in a cut-down version put together by Drayton Entertainment, these Scoundrels are not only alive and well, they're perfectly endearing. Well, in a coarse sort of way.

This is a tough, aggressive sort of show. One that's almost always in-your-face.

The humor's hot, the songs radioactive. The hilarity never gives in. Forget sweet and sentimental.

To work well, Scoundrels needs out-sized performances that can cut a large swath through a pretty so-so book.

It's all scatological jokes, silly puns and sexy innuendo. It's definitely not High School Musical 1, 2 or 3. It's too grown up for that.

We are in Beaumont-sur-Mere, a seaside gambling town in France. Handsome, silver-tongued crook, Lawrence Jameson is holding court. A smoothie of incredible proportion, he's Rex Harrison on speed, John Barrymore on schnapps, Robert Goulet with lighter feet.

As played by Canadian theatre star Brian McKay, he's also someone you'd like to know. Even if danger dogs his footsteps, he has time for a quick song and dance and a pearly toothed smile to the front row.

McKay's superb at suggesting Lawrence's exterior Rolex perfection cast against dimestore inner workings. Born to play this role, he hits the stage running.

He's beautifully matched by Stephen Patterson's bombastic Freddy Benson.

Patterson's the kind of actor who can make a coarse, vulgar grifter somehow seem lovable.

Also terrific is the incomparable Karen K. Edissi. Better than Joanna Gleason ever was on Broadway, Edissi makes society maven Muriel Eubanks her very own.

Add Heather McGuigan's feisty Christine Colgate and Patrick Brown's smooth as silk Andre Thibault and you have a company of scoundrels to reckon with.

Sometimes the road show sets look a tad small on the Hamilton Place stage. They're clever and sophisticated but they look like they belong in a smaller house. Somehow it doesn't matter.

The cast -- cut down, too, from New York -- is a terrific ensemble, They really kick butt, looking comfortable and slick in Alex Mustakis' sharp direction.

OK, Scoundrels isn't a brilliant musical in the manner of Stephen Sondheim, or even Andrew Lloyd Webber.

But it is lots of fun.

And David Yazbek's songs are far better than those he created for The Full Monty, with some attractive ballads and novelty numbers that don't waste time on subtlety.

Well, come to think of it, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels hasn't much to do with subtlety anyway.

What it does have to do with is rambunctious Broadway entertainment. It's like The Producers, or better yet The Full Monty, a throwback to days when musicals weren't afraid to go for the laughs.

You'll have a great time.

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.