What things get up to behind humans’ backs is a well-known trope, entertainingly mined in English Touring Opera’s production of Rossini’s Cinderella.

The scene is set during the overture, when we realise we are looking at a room in a museum, in which the current exhibits are being taken apart. After hours, the mannequins and portraits in the museum come to life.

First we see the Ugly Sisters – Clorinda (Nazan Fikret) and Tisbe (Lauren Young) in flesh-coloured body-suits and the appropriate underwear for crinolines. Cinderella is already in her packing-case, wearing little more than the body-suit and an apron, wistfully singing a song that is REALLY annoying the Sisters. This version of the Cinderella story does not have a fairy godmother, instead a man arrives, seeking a cup of tea and a sandwich, helpfully left during the overture by the security guard and handed over by Cinderella. Esme Bronwen-Smith is a sweet, and rich-voiced, Cinderella.

The soldiers who bring tidings of Prince Ramiro’s imminent arrival are clearly from a wartime tableau, as each is wearing a slightly different version of trousers, shirt and headgear – forage cap, beret, peaked cap. Then Don Magnifico – the wicked stepfather – appears, in fawn combinations. Learning about the Prince, he goes to dress and comes back looking very like Napoleon. There is a bit of business concerning a life-size model horse on a trolley, wrapped in plastic and brown parcel tape, before the Prince and his valet Dandini appear, both wearing shorts, though the Prince does have a princely robe.

When Don Magnifico (Arshak Kuzikyan) refuses to let Cinderella come to the ball, the resulting quintet (Signor, una parola) is well-done. Alidoro – the stranger – is a wise counsellor to the Prince and takes Cinderella to the Ball himself. When the unknown beauty arrives and clearly upstages the Sisters, their attempts to find out who she is are thwarted by Alidoro’s uninformative answers. Edward Hawkins is excellent in the part, his face registering his enjoyment of their discomfiture.

If there is a wrong note in this production, it is Cinderella’s ball-gown, magnificent gold stripes but no under-skirt between the frilled over-skirt and the matching pantaloons, and trailing on the ground so that Bronwen-Smith spends most of her time draping it over her arm so that she can move in the sparkling ensembles.

Ramiro having agreed with Dandini that they switch roles so Ramiro can get to know the true character of the sisters, Dandini throws himself into being more regal than the Prince, to the extent that Ramiro has to tell him to dial it down a bit. Edmund Danon hams up Dandini while, from the body language of Joseph Doody’s Ramiro, he is clearly wincing. While he sings Sì, ritrovarla io giuro, the squaddies strike attitudes in one tableau after another.

Christopher Cowell’s translation is witty and fun, and one would never guess, from the sound that conductor James Ham gets from the orchestra, that they are playing a cut-down version suitable for the orchestral resources - Derek Clark’s orchestration works so well.