Reviews

Holiday on Ice – Tropicana: The Passion Tour (tour – Brighton Centre)

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25 November 2012

Holiday on Ice is 69 years old this
year – but if you think that means it’s time to pension it off,
think again. Olympic champion and Dancing on Ice
judge Robin Cousins has pulled out all the stops to bring the show
bang up to date. He has created a piece that is thrilling,
high-energy and fast-paced one moment and sexy, sensual and
smouldering the next.

Set mainly to the music of superstar
songwriter Barry Manilow, with both his newest pieces and some
original scores dropped in for good measure, the show takes us from
the sultry Copacabana nightclub where we meet Lola all the way to a
weekend in New England.

With no scenery and minimal props in
evidence, the set changes happen using the show’s latest
innovation, a giant interactive LED screen. This provides not only a
massive addition to the already impressive lightshow, but also
enhances both the songs and the skating.

The show has retained many of its most
popular features like the incredibly impressive wheel, where we all
wonder if that last skater will actually be fast enough to catch up,
the ladies in huge elaborate costumes, who seem to glide across the
ice as if they are floating, and, of course, the big finale. This
year, however, something new has happened to the performance.

Bolstered, I am sure, by the success of
the television show, the performance has a new energy and vigour
about it. The skaters are, as usual, absolutely world-class. They
travel at breakneck speeds to perform the jumps and leave the
audience astounded by the amazing skill and dexterity that they need
to perform at this level.

They also, in the slower numbers,
reveal a sensuality in their performance that is both palpable and
beautiful. This is most noticeable in the wonderful “Bolero d’amore” which is performed by five skaters who, taking
metrosexuality to its logical conclusion, dance boy with girl, girl
with girl and boy with boy.

The younger members of the audience are
treated to a fantastical Christmas number where all the toys in the
toyshop on the screen come to life and each one – from the
gingerbread man and woman to the dinosaur, the toy soldiers and even
the teddy bear – take to the ice and interact with the audience in
a number that actually goes off the top of the cute scale.

I spoke to Cousins after the show and
he explained that: “The rhythm of skating fits the way that
Manilow’s melodies unfold and it doesn’t take much manoeuvring of
the way that skates work to make it fit in a comfortable fashion”.
This is very obvious throughout the show, as each and every scene is
artistically, creatively and visually superb.