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The male dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves but most of the women looked distinctly uncomfortable. One of the female soloists had a strapped knee which made me wonder how many of the others were carrying injuries. Cinderella needs quite a large company to provide ball guests as well as a variety of solo and character parts and they are nearing the end of a lengthy tour so it may be that they were running out of steam. Certainly the standard of dancing was far lower than I remembered from previous tours ­ a sense of hesitancy, lots of wobbling and not much elevation in the jumps. It is possible that the latter is a result of the limitations of the stage at High Wycombe: it did look crowded in the “crowd” scenes. Honourable exceptions were Elena Osokina as Cinderella and Elena Zhavoronkova as the Fairy Godmother who displayed the technical skill expected of Russian dancers.

The other female soloists ­ Cinderella’s Stepmother and sisters, the seasonal fairies and two character dancers who popped up during The Prince’s global search for the wearer of the slipper ­ looked ill at ease and unable to make much of their tricksy but limited steps. They are a young-looking company but I did wonder why the most mature-looking member, Elena Zhavoronkova, was dancing the Fairy Godmother when the Stepmother was danced by Bogdana Barabanova who seemed to be about the same age as her “daughters”. Incidentally the Stepsisters were called “Skinny” and “Dumpy” in the cast list ­ both were slim and beautiful and although one may have been slightly less tall than the other neither could be said to look the part. There is no point in lumbering characters with comic names which refer to physical idiosyncrasies if the dancers aren’t built or made up to match. It’s rather as if Mrs. Malaprop suddenly displays and impeccable vocabulary.

There was heavy emphasis on broad comedy ­ and far too much gurning. There were a couple of genuinely funny bits which had the audience chuckling ­ once when Cinderella’s father tries to creep off stage to avoid his wife’s attention and again when the Prince shows his dismay when the Stepmother has a go at putting on the glass slipper. Instead of a Jester or Ashton’s comic outfitters we had four comic Ministers ­ of Dance, Music, Poetry and Art. The Minister of Dance was the most outrageous but they all had a good deal of fun camping up their roles. The King had a dancing as well as a character role and was both amusing and impressive. I may be wrong but I think I saw him (Dmitri Romanov) as Drosselmayer in their version of Nutcracker a while ago and I thought then that he outshone the rest of the company.

The sets were simple and colourful if a trifle flimsy. Members of the corps de ballet, dressed variously as minions, pages, heralds and the hours of the clock played an important part in scene changes ­ an effective method, permitting several scene changes within the two-act format without irritating pauses in the action. Unfortunately they were dressed in quite blinding gold leggings with a variety of interchangeable tunics to designate the different roles they were playing, so the scene changes tended to grab the attention rather more than was desirable. Still, at least the gold leggings were visible against the incredibly colourful costumes of some of the soloists.

The choreography for the corps in their various guises, especially as the hours of the clock, reminded me irresistibly of that strange free-style section of Come Dancing when an enthusiastic group of amateurs, usually called something improbable like “The Venture Scouts’ Clog-Rock Troupe” performed a self-choreographed routine of staggering clunkiness in order to gain their team some points for “entertainment value”.

The Prince (Stanislav Bukharaev) had a laddish charm rather than a noble demeanour but he was a considerate partner and made the most of his own steps. There were a couple of longish pas de deux for the Prince and Cinderella which had all the ingredients for a satisfactorily swoony interlude but were performed with a rather off-putting matter-of-factness ­ think Keats read by Delia Smith rather than Nigel Havers.

To summarise, the music was badly served, the production values were not great, the choreography was unsatisfactory and the dancers seemed uncomfortable with it, the comedy was heavy-handed and I went away disappointed. The fact that it was a sell-out and that the audience showed far more appreciation than I felt the performance deserved says a great deal about attitudes to dance in this country: sort of “if it’s Russian it must be good”. I could weep for some of the small British companies struggling to keep going in the face of public indifference when what they have to offer is probably a good deal more rewarding than this lacklustre Cinderella.