It’s true. You really don’t need a cast of 50 sisters, cousins and aunts or whatever to make G&S work. In fact, in recent years, I’ve concluded that a bijoux cast is often better because, with strong performers, you can make every note, line and word crystal clear in a way that larger groups cannot usually do.

And so to Ruddigore, which came in 1887 imediately after The Mikado and before The Yeomen of the Guard, For decades I’ve struggled to understand why Gilbert and Sullivan’s magnificent gothic send-up isn’t better known. The score, which I’ve known and loved since my teens includes some of Sullivan’s loveliest gems.

Well perhaps this production will help to rectify that. It sits very happily in the gothic shabby chic of Wilton’s Music Hall where director Peter Benedict, who also appears as Sir Despard, has retrieved some of Gilbert’s cut dialogue and reordered some of the songs in order to make this complicated plot about ancestors, three men with the same surname, ghosts and the rest as clear as possible.

The talented cast is a mixture of opera-trained singers and those who’ve come via the musical theatre route and the difference is clear. Benedict himself, for example, is a terrific actor – all Hitchcock-ian menace and eyes – and very good indeed at diction but his singing style is more Noel Coward than Bryn Terfel.

Madeline Robinson, on the other hand, is every inch an opera singer with a stylish voice and fine acting skills. I’m always pleased when an audience, who don’t know it’s coming, laugh spontaneously at a Gilbert joke – such as “It says you must not hint – in print” and Robinson brings off that and lots of other lines with perfect timing. She also communicates every nuance of her feelings often with just a tilt of her head.

Rosemary Ashe, wheeled on whenever the three-person female chorus is on stage to bash out the alto line, is a strong character actor as Dame Hannah. And her expositionary number “Sir Rupert Murgatroyd”, brought forward in this production, is entertaining and certainly makes the plot as clear as it’s ever likely to be.

Graham Stone turns in a nice performance (modelled on Jim Carter’s Mr Carson in Downton Abbey?) as Old Adam – lots of on-stage gravitas and lovely bass singing especially in the madrigal “When the buds are blossoming” which brings the whole cast on stage – conducted by Steve Watt, dressed as the officiating clergyman.

The small band, below stage left, is directed by Tom Noyes on keys. The music is an interesting blend of recorded and live with some pleasing trumpet and reed work. Watt plays trumpet in the first half and then goes a good Sir Roderic in the second act. Yes, there’s a lot of ingenious versatility in this production.

Best of all, though, is violinist Luca Kocsmarszky, who sits above the band on stage at the side of the action. Dressed in draped Victorian floral velvet, she plays almost continuously in this re-orchestration, gazes at the action quizzically over her glasses and gestures at the cast with oodles of personality. When Charli Baptie (excellent) as Mad Margaret sings “To a garden full of roses” Kocsmarszky is leaning in and visibly duetting with her and it’s really rather beautiful.

Sullivan’s marvellous ghost music (Gilbert, apparently disliked it, deeming it too serious and comparing it with 50 lines of Paradise Lost inserted into a farce) sets the scene as splendidly as ever – with all those descending scales and minor key shivers before Roderic’s big number. The ghosts’ emergence from the pictures, traditionally presents a technical problem but this is the digital age so Tom Fitch gives us a projection of each ancestor singing in his or her frame, high on the back wall – which is fun.

Ashe and Watts are especially delightful in their love duet “There grew a little flower”. It’s an unusual song because his bass line is higher than her alto one and the effect – if it’s done well, as it is here – is magical.

The dialogue is a good blend of insertions and Gilbert’s cod-medieval stuff, including some which is often cut. I don’t, for example, remember ever having heard Rose’s line about the accusative case before. My favourite joke of the evening was Sir Ruthven (Joe Winter – good) desperate to commit a crime, ordering every on his estate to stay in because of a smallpox outbreak and then throwing a party for all his friends. His glee is delicious.

All in all a fine show, then, with just two minor caveats. First it’s a good idea to suggest at the beginning that we’re in the 21st century when the castle is now a weird Victorian hotel with hints of a horror film – but it’s not followed through and therefore becomes pointless. Moreover I’d prefer to listen to the overture (Geoffrey Toye’s 1920 version) than watch distracting supplementary on- stage mimed action.

Second, the reworked finale with the inclusion of a number “When a man has been a naught baronet”, which is often omitted, feels a bit jerky and abrupt. It means a clumsy shift from duple time to triple to get into the last “Happy the lily” and sounds awkward. It was cut in the 1920 revival but later reinstated for D’Oyly Carte productions. I think the finale works better without it.

Susan Elkin