I know it sounds churlish, but could the cast of the 21st-birthday revival of Jonathan Miller's Barber of Seville look a little bit less like they're all in on the joke? Yes, Miller's vintage pratfalls are delicious, the gags so carefully seeded around Tanya McCallin's sun-baked designs that it's easy to see why Miller's English National Opera staging has lasted.

But in Ian Rutherford's efficient but rather primary colours revival not all the chiaroscuro has made the journey. As a result, watching this 1987 show whirr gamely into life is a bit like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers and pouring yourself a generous sherry. Our friendly barber, Figaro (Garry Magee) is the audience's best friend before he's even sung a note: a pity that Magee's rather brusque take on the character has all the right actions and all the right props, but doesn't supply the roguish charm really to hook us into the action. Conducting, Rory Macdonald's generous way with Rossini's score is good on detail but short on snap and crackle: like Figaro's best razor, it ought to cut us to the quick.

It's not a vintage cast, but this ensemble has its jewels. Mezzo-soprano Anna Grevelius, just 18 months ago a bright young thing at the National Opera Studio, comes of age as the headstrong Rosina, tossing out velvety coloratura with insouciant abandon. She's a preening pony of a heroine, even giving an endearing yelp of triumph at the end of Una voce poco fa (you won't hear those words, of course, in Anthony and Amanda Holden's punchily effective English translation) to show just how confident she is of snaring John Tessier's Almaviva.

Tessier, possessed of a supple though slender tenor, loses some vocal lustre as the show goes on, but makes a promising house debut. Support from two bit-parts could be stronger: Brindley Sherratt's slimy Don Basilio doesn't boom terrifyingly enough in his ode to calumny; Jennifer Rhys-Davies's dowdy Berta doesn't help you understand why Rossini gave the maid a whole aria.

But it's an old hand from (I suspect) leaner and keener revivals who comes off best: that's Andrew Shore's majestic Dr Bartolo, a magnificent portrait of pomposity that quickly degenerates into a priceless comic cameo. As he yaps like an elderly pekinese, traps his pince-nez in the piano lid or simply gets splattered in shaving foam, we're with him all the way.

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