This new production of Cinderella from the Russian Ice Stars is work with real verve. There is a short prologue in which we meet the lonely Cinders (Valeria Vorobyeva). Then things start to happen as the glittering fairy godmother (Katya Muragova) flies gracefully into the room. Like all the cast she is a skater with a record of success in European and world championships, in this case a former world champion.

Most of them have competed in the pairs, which has trained them well in the dance elements of skating, and the whole cast perform beautifully to the new choreography by the company’s former star Olga Pershankcova, and former Bolshoi ballerina Ludmilla Butskova.

Cinderella’s father runs a tavern, which is the excuse for much more whizzing jollity than you get in the usual gloomy kitchen of the heroine’s home. Vorobyeva gives a musical and touching performance in the lead, to music cobbled quite effectively together from Coppelia, Swan Lake and Raymonda, to name but a three. Valdis Mintals is a beautiful skater and makes a fine Prince, and among the rest of the cast there are outstanding performances.

The company’s regular aerialists, Alexander Belokopitov and his wife Ekaterina, are given the roles of jesters, and, dressed in pink and white striped body-suits, they give some breathtaking displays throughout the piece. Cinderella’s mother is the immensely tall Sergei Slavnov, who plays for laughs as a pantomime dame; but, unusually, the stepsisters are younger than Cinderella. Viktoria Shklova and Maria Murhortova are like St Trinian’s girls in fancy dress — likeable, quite saucy as well as naughty, and they clearly know a thing or two. Tiny Shklova has been a serious skater in her time; but who would have expected such a brilliant comedic talent? She sparkles at every moment she is on the stage, and is in danger of stealing the show.