Cole Porter was too well-off to be greatly depressed by the Great Depression, but Anything Goes, set on a luxury liner shortly after the crash, is essentially an ocean-going version of Porter’s legendarily debauched parties – a hedonistic farrago of nightclub singers, mobsters and eccentric English toffs with lashings of hello-sailor innuendo. It would be easy for the satire to acquire a bitter taste, given that the protagonist, Billy Crocker, is a feckless Wall Street broker partly responsible for creating the mess in the first place. But, as Stephen Sondheim pointed out, “Porter’s wit is generous to the listener as well as to his targets”.

If Daniel Evans’s production at the Crucible has no higher purpose than pure escapism, then it succeeds admirably. The staging quickly establishes the slightly giddy sense of euphoria that only a great musical can inspire, partly due to the vertiginous optical illusion of Richard Kent’s set, in which sailors scaling the back wall appear to be scrubbing the decks from a seagull’s perspective. And though it would be hard to fail with a score that delivers I Get a Kick Out of You, You’re the Top and It’s De-Lovely all within the first half hour, the performances are particularly sublime.

Stephen Matthews gives a splendidly dotty turn as a displaced English aristocrat, whose presence is the one clear indication of PG Wodehouse’s hand in creating the libretto. Matt Rawle is a likable Billy Crocker, and Hugh Sachs is huge value as a hapless hoodlum who conceals a violin in his machine-gun case.

But Debbie Kurup is without doubt the heart, soul and lungs of the production in the role of nightclub chanteuse Reno Sweeney, whose delivery of the least pious spiritual ever written, Blow Gabriel Blow, is sufficient to give the devil hot sweats. What else can you say other than that it’s delightful, it’s de-lovely and it’s de-definitely worth booking a ticket.

• Until 17 January, then touring. Box office: 0114-249 6000. Venue: Sheffield theatres. Tour details here.