This is not a panto, it’s very much an ice-ballet with a touch of real ballet in the middle. The basics of the well-known story are there – young girl loses her mother, father remarries and she is bullied by her stepmother and stepsisters. Arriving at a ball for which her invitation had been stolen she falls for her host who also falls for her. Dashing off at midnight she leaves behind one slipper (well, a skating boot actually) which leads her lover to discover her identity. Why couldn’t he just recognise her? I always wonder, without all this boot-fitting stuff.

In this version, Cinderella and her step-sisters are ballet dancers in the course of putting on Swan Lake. The bullying comes in the form of a dispute over the leading role, which Cinders gets when the leading man drops a rival ‘sister’. We actually see a bit of the performance – there is a curtain at the back of the stage which opens to show us another, painted audience, before whom the cast perform.

In the second act we go to the ball, in this case given by the mayor, with his son turning out to be the love interest.

This is cleverly thought out and it works. There is some very beautiful skating, especially from Olga Sharutenko and Andrei Penkine (pictured) as Cinderella and the mayor’s son. They have long and very expressive duets in which we see clearly their growing feelings for each other. Their skating also calls for great skill and daring; during Swan Lake Cinderella, as Odette, actually flies above the stage, and in their final duet as united lovers she flies again, with Penkine at one point hanging from her feet.

There is strength in depth here, with virtuoso jumps and spins from most of the likeable cast, among whom Vadim Yarkov as Cinderella’s lugubrious father, and Olena Pyatash as a stunningly attractive stepmother, are outstanding.

Cinderella on Ice runs till Saturday at Milton Keynes.