The Ghosts of Ruddigore, Bridewell Theatre, London

Gilbert & Sullivan for hardcore fans

I once worked for an editor who forbade his writers to quote Dr Johnson. He had nothing against Dr Johnson, he said, but the people who quoted him were ghastly. I feel the same way about Gilbert and Sullivan. Once you get past the misogyny and the smugness, Gilbert and Sullivan are great, especially Gilbert. (Seeing Ruddigore for the first time, I was startled by a heroine, Rose Maybud, who must have been Oscar Wilde's inspiration for the dainty, flint-hearted Cecily Cardew.)

G&S lovers, though, are the kind of people who live in the country and like it. They're not misogynists like Gilbert, oh no. They would be happy to have another woman for prime minister – Ann Widdecombe, say. If they don't know you, they don't want to, and, though the men would say, like Ruddigore's hero, that they have the greatest respect for ladies, my God their elbows are sharp at the interval bar. I don't think they can be listening (their kind never do) when he sings of "well-to-do squires, who live in the shires/ Where petty distinctions are vital''.

Unlike such slam-bang reworkings as the all-black Hot Mikado or the version of Pirates with the divine Kevin Kline – both meant to appeal to everyone, and doing so – Opera Della Luna's shows are put on for card-carrying Gilbert and Sullivan freaks. Such comparisons will strike the company's fans as unjust, since those productions had far more money to spend. But they also had passion and vision, qualities that are anathema to this company's jolly hockey-sticks ethos.

The director Jeff Clarke's reason for rewriting Ruddigore was not a new approach but a tight budget – instead of 17 actors, plus chorus, he makes do with a cast of seven, which leads to much doubling (three of Rose's four bridesmaids are chaps in puffy pink frocks). I suspect, though, that the desire to baby the audience with a representative on stage was also responsible for beginning with a dreary Home Counties couple whose car breaks down near the mythical Cornwall village of Rederring. The G&S characters appear, and the couple are drawn into the action, simultaneously playing the roles and maintaining an ironic distance from them, and gaily acknowledging this absurdity by exclaiming, "Anything can happen in a comic opera!''

The second act, in the original as limp and ramshackle as that of Follies, is made even more confusing by the arch revisions. The tone isn't raised by a sailor's repeated pelvic thrusts to demonstrate enthusiasm, or by the hero offering his buttocks to a woman dressed like an MFH's wet dream.

The general level of acting and singing is that of winsome mediocrity – if you're waiting to hear someone rip through "My Eyes are Fully Open'' the way it should be done, don't hold your breath. Ian Belsey's decrepit Sir Roderic Murgatroyd is full of sonorous doom and gloom, though, and Kirsty Hoiles has plenty of verve (less, however, would be more).

The one outstanding performer is John Griffiths. His Sir Despard (the very bad baronet) puts one in mind of a Donald Sinden who doesn't overact combined with a bit of Frank Thornton. This richly but lightly camp character would be the highlight of a much more brilliant show.

To 28 Sep (020-7936 3456)