The very appearance of The Mikado in ENO's current season is a topsy-turvy substitution Gilbert himself would have relished. You can just hear the conversation at English National Opera a few months ago. What, you mean our hard-hitting new opera by Asian Dub Foundation's Chandrasonic exploring Colonel Gadafy's influence on the Middle East conflict won't be ready until September? Never mind, let's roll out a spot of Gilbert and Sullivan instead.

It was only right that Richard Suart's latest, spot-on, revision of Ko-Ko's "little list" came with a reminder of this, along with the suggestion that one person who really "won't be missed" is ENO's recently departed chairman. That seemed to go down particularly well.

One thing Gilbert would have resented is the implication that the Mikado, with all its satire on politics and bureaucracy, is a soft option. But Jonathan Miller's staging, 20 years old and still fresh, has all the bite he could have wished for. Offering both a hearty embracing of the work, stereotypes and all, and a knowing commentary upon it, this remains perhaps the best music-theatre staging Miller has done.

Amid all the bellhop ballet-boys and schoolgirls of indeterminate age, much of the cast, directed once again by David Ritch, is familiar. Suart's Ko-Ko may be approaching the limit of how much hamming-up one role can take, but it's deservedly his show. Richard Angas's Mikado and Ian Caddy's deliciously supercilious Pooh-Bah also return.

Newcomers include the US tenor Keith Jameson who, as the wandering minstrel Nanki-Poo, sings his songs with a slightly dry but crystal-clear tenor, lighting up the stage with a dippy smile as he pursues "merital heppiness" with Sarah Tynan's sweetly arch Yum-Yum. Toby Stafford-Allen is miscast as Pish-Tush, forced to assume a stage-Yorkshire accent that comes between us and a song that explains half of the plot; but Felicity Palmer's battleaxe Katisha is a scene-stealing treat. Simon Lee's conducting may lack quite the ideal responsive flexibility, but it hardly seems to matter. Some shows just work.

· In rep until March 3. Box office: 0870 145 1700.