I opened the com port and baud rate found by NodeMCU Flasher (Com 5, 115200 Baud) and got the following:
Communication with MCU..Got answer! Communication with MCU established.
AutoDetect firmware...
AT-based firmware detected.
AT+GMR
AT version:1.3.0.0(Jul 14 2016 18:54:01)
SDK version:2.0.0(656edbf)
compile time:Jul 19 2016 18:44:44
OK
Easy. Now I realise that I could not get the module to respond when I first tried because the old tutorials I found specified a 9600 baud connection that has long since been replaced with 115200.
I tried a few AT commands but I think I'll be moving onto another development platform.