Hot Ice - Dreams at Blackpool Pleasure Beach Arena: Review
NO-ONE visits a seaside resort hoping to cool off – but after seeing Blackpool's new sizzling 'Hot Ice' show, you may need a cold shower.
After seeing Blackpool's new sizzling 'Hot Ice' show, you may need a cold shower
It's a well-known showbiz fact the Lancashire town's famous Pleasure Beach boasts the world's longest-running, dancing-on-ice spectacular.
But what's truly incredible is despite being in its 81st year, it still thrills and blows you away.
Packed with elite Olympic stars and TV 'Dancing On Ice' professionals, some of the world's top figure-skaters have graced the show in recent years.
And this summer's show 'Dreams' is filled with more stunts, flames, sequins, feathers, jaw-dropping technique and downright sauciness then ever before.
The costumes would make a Rio carnival green with envy
With 31 skaters spinning, leaping, lifting and gliding for two hours, it's amazing the ice isn't simply melted by its relentless speed.
The arena is nestled in the shadows of the theme park's iconic Big One, and what occurs on the ice is just as much a breath-taking, rollercoaster ride.
'Dreams' opens with a cool, jazzy, musical mash-up of Beethoven's 7th Symphony.
As fast as a rapier's thrust, it's followed by a hazy sequence of sultry pairs cavorting across the ice in powder-blue frills and leotards.
With 31 skaters spinning, leaping, lifting and gliding for two hours
Another dance number sees a bevy of black swans strutting their stuff, trying to attract a mate – choreographed in inch perfect, Diversity-esque precision.
The acrobatic sequences are superb, with one raunchy scene in a bathtub like a wet Flashdance with rippling muscles instead of Jennifer Beals' sweaty leotards.
Director Amanda Thompson OBE – who owns and runs the Pleasure Beach – wrote this year's show about her own early skating life and dreams.
But you have to stress it's the show's choreographer for the last decade, Oula Jaaskelainen, who deserves the real plaudits here.
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Ex-Finnish skating champion Jaaskelainen started his professional ice career at the Pleasure Beach Arena in 1994.
Now he's creating productions of such pace and ferocity; so delicate, intricate and sometimes reckless, with near-instant costume changes – his skating smorgasbord is truly impressive.
As you expect from Hot Ice, the costumes would make a Rio carnival green with envy.
And like the freeze of the ice, 'Dreams' makes your hair stand on end and gives it a chilly tingle just for good measure.
Hot Ice – Dreams is performing at Blackpool Pleasure Beach Arena, July 6th until September 9th – 0871 222 9090.