THIS show is this week's late replacement for Anything Goes, which became Anything Gone when its tour was cut short by three months.

A replacement it may be, but Dirty Rotten Scoundrels comes from the Ambassador Theatre Group, producers of such hits as The Jersey Boys and Legally Blonde. So its production values are of the highest standards: expensive sets, smart costume designs and a strong touring cast led by Michael Praed, Noel Sullivan, Carley Stenson and guest star Mark Benton for a crafty concoction that has played to more than half a million people at London's Savoy Theatre.

Based on Sir Michael Caine and Steve Martin's stylised, old-fashioned film from 1998, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels transports you to the French Riviera of Beaumont-sur-Mer. There, decadence and romance meet deception as two swindlers, Praed's urbane English veteran, Lawrence Jameson, and Sullivan's brash, jaunty new kid in town, Freddy Benson, attempt to hoodwink a millionaire heiress, Stenson's deceptively wily "soap queen" Christine Colgate.

Ostensibly a team, the conmen nevertheless end up seeking to outdo and outwit each other, using Colgate as their pawn, or so they think because Jerry Mitchell has cooked up a smart script where nothing can be taken at face value, especially as Colgate may just prove to be deeper than her toothpaste smile.

As the competitive con artists, Praed has a suave twinkle about him, while Sullivan affirms both his comic skills and singing prowess, as he has done in a succession of musicals after his plastic pop days in Hear'Say; Stenson's Colgate is more than a match for the pair of them.

Mark Benton enjoys himself too as a French policeman with one eye on the conmen and the other on Geraldine Fitzgerald's perky Muriel.

Slick and suave as it all is, however, the first half strains too hard for its laughs in Jeffrey Lane's over-egged script and although the show improves to match Mitchell's punchy choreography, the awkward, shrill songs of David Yazbek do not.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: The Musical, Leeds Grand Theatre, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 848 2700 or at leedsgrandtheatre.com