C hristmastime is predictable: swirls of white lights; favorite carols that young kids first learn as Chet’s Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire and Hark the Harold Angels Sing; dustings of snow, real in the East, fake in the West; and the viewing of classic Christmas movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart. For the past two Christmases, the Vineyard Playhouse in Vineyard Haven has mounted a delightful production of It’s a Wonderful Life, The Radio Play (written by Philip Grecian). Those Islanders who haven’t yet had a chance to see it are missing out on the full holiday experience.

If there’s anyone out there who’s not familiar with the classic story, here it is in a few broad strokes: Before, during and after World War II, George Bailey (Christopher Kann) is dying to get out of small town Bedford Falls, but he’s foiled at every turn. He meets the lovely Mary (Victoria Campbell) and is pressed into resurrecting his dad’s savings and loan company. He must also rescue the town from the evil machinations of Mr. Potter, that “money-grubbing old buzzard” (played with gleeful malice by Don Lyons). He sires four adorable kids, resuscitates a crumbling Victorian house and, because he has a big ol’ heart, lends a helping hand to friends and acquaintances in dire straits. So as much as he’d love to go to college and see the world, his experiences revolve around the old adage, life happens to you while you’re making other plans.

When George’s inept Uncle Harry (Rob Myers) misplaces $8,000 meant for the company’s bank account, and the horrible Mr. Potter pockets it without a moment’s recrimination, George decides he’s worth more dead than alive, thanks to a $15,000 payout on his life insurance policy. With an implacable position that he “should never have been born,” he heads off on Christmas Eve to leap into a nippy stream.

Enter Clarence (Clark Maffitt), a kindly, hapless angel-wannabe who, after 200-plus years, is ready to win his wings. His assignment is to reveal to George what twists and turns life would have taken for his loved ones and the good citizens of Bedford Falls had he never been born.

One challenge that has always presented itself to this reviewer when watching It’s a Wonderful Life — and I’d love to see a show of hands from anyone who’s experienced the same small problemo — is that, unlike George, I’ve never pulled anyone from the ice, never spared a distraught pharmacist from mistakenly dispensing poison pills to a customer, and never saved a community from the predations of a sinister businessman . . . In other words, my tiny piece of the world would look pretty much the same had I never been born, other than the fact that no one would ever have tasted my admittedly divine carrot cake.

However, that one cavil aside — that few of us are the heroic George Bailey as purveyed by Jimmy Stewart and, at the Vineyard Playhouse this Christmas season by the endearing Mr. Kann — the “radio” version of the story is a hoot from start to finish. The entire play is presented as a 1940s broadcast. Actors take their places behind microphones the size of sunflowers. Commercial breaks are introduced by the basso-voiced Announcer (Leslie J. Stark). A collection of a cappella actors sing jingles for Cronig’s (“They come from near and far just to get a taste of that salad bar”), Chilmark Chocolates (“Chappy Cherrie Chocolates”), Tisbury Printer (“It feels like home”), Island Bottled Water (“No one knows more about H2O”), the Scottish Bakehouse (“Call double six, double three”) and Our Market (“Shooby-doo, Our Market”).

Arguably the star of this radio drama is the Sound Booth over on stage left where actors/sound techs Paul Munafo and Jim Novack lean into their microphones to offer voices of off-stage overseers and Heaven’s supervisory panel. Meanwhile, just as soundmen used to do in old-time radio, they work the heck out of impromptu equipment.

An electric device reproduces the bell tone of an old-fashioned phone. An actual old phone, black and heavy as lead, provides the click-click of dialing. A cigarette lighter is flicked beside the microphone for, you guessed it, the sound of a cigarette lighter. The super-sized drugstore lighter which Bedford Falls kids pummel for good luck is reproduced by a three-hole punch pounded with one great whack. For gale-force wind sounds, Dr. Novack built a cylinder with bumps and nubs through which a bolt of canvas is churned. For the splashes created by breaking ice, an inside-out toilet plunger is bounced up and down in a pail of water. Two boxes with doors and knobs reproduce the sound of car doors opening and shutting. A plastic box filled with pine nugget cat litter gets tromped on for an amazing approximation of footsteps crunching on frosty ground.

On the opposite side of the stage is another all-important sensation: Music arranger and performer Wesley Nagy swivels between a piano and two digital keyboards to create every sound from a romantic tinkling of the ivories to xylophone keynotes for angel activities to thunderous chords to jack up the old-timey radio melodrama.

As always, the playhouse has a positive genius for identifying youthful acting ability. Katherine Reid, Kayla Goldman, Tyler Shapiro and Russell Shapiro pitch in admirably on multiple kid roles.

On the grown-up roster, Jill Macy and Geneva Monks hustle between various comic characters, and Mark Shelton is the designated Swing for All Male Roles.

And speaking of swings, on the Sunday matinee when I attended, Christopher Roberts was off the boards to help his wife have a baby (a much superior excuse to “The dog ate my homework”), so Paul Munafo, with the panache that attends everything he does, hot footed it from his microphone and FX at the sound table to fill in on Mr. Roberts’s roles, most notably the distracted pharmacist, Mr. Gower.

Maestro M.J. Bruder Munafo produces and directs, Fred Hancock provides lighting design, jingle writer credit goes to Rob Myers, production supervisor is Kate Hancock, production assistant and box office manager is Geneva Monks who also, as mentioned, pitches in on a couple of acting roles, Robert Porter serves as house manager, Jaxon White is staff photographer and graphics and publications are the work of Steven M. Zablotny.

It’s a Wonderful Life, The Radio Play will run until Dec. 21. For information and reservations, call the box office at 508-696-6300.