The Hot Ice Show: Amore Amor Amour at Blackpool Pleasure Beach Arena – review

My goodness, Amanda Thompson knows how to put on a show. Now in her 28^th season directing and producing Blackpool’s famous Hot Ice Show, she combines creative duties with running the Pleasure Beach, in whose arena the performance is housed.

But there’s no sign of her being distracted by the day job in this production, nominally themed around love and opening up for the summer with a display of technical expertise and dramatic verve to rival… well, pretty much anywhere, really.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have nearly three dozen of the world’s finest ice performers at your disposal, gathered together from across the globe to deliver what has to be one of the most impressive ice shows you could hope to see. Besides the stunning skating technique, there are plenty of acting, dancing and acrobatic skills on offer from this impeccably-rehearsed company, which includes Olympic and world champions among its number.

The Pleasure Beach has had lots of time to hone its ice show: the first one was performed in 1936 and its prestigious history includes the likes of Robin Cousins, fresh from his gold medal at the 1980 Olympics. But while longevity doesn’t necessarily bestow quality, this production has creativity in abundance.

What’s most striking about the succession of numbers, interspersing huge ensemble routines with beautifully presented individual and small-group offerings, is the attention to detail. The stunning choreography by Hot Ice veteran Oula Jaaskelainen is just one part of this seamlessly-worked machine. Extraordinary and lavish costumes by the in-house Stageworks team are tailor-made to look immaculate: sequins, rhinestones and feathers abound.

Jack Norman’s lighting adds another layer of spectacle, alongside a thundering score credited to six composers – the enigmatic Notable Stranger, Berenice Scott, Glen Gregory, Craig Hemmings, Rick Guard and Phil Rice. There’s a heavy reliance on rhythmic drum beats and sonorous, monastic-style vocals throughout, but they work superbly to complement the dynamic action on the ice.

Every trick in the book is thrown at the production, which means video projection of swelling seas and overblown moons, backlit silhouettes to add drama, and vast clouds of dry ice for extra atmosphere. In some contexts you might argue it’s all a bit melodramatic: here, it’s a fabulous, spectacular mélange.

Bits are borrowed from all over the place. There’s a male corps de ballet lifted from Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, a section set to Ravel’s Bolero that echoes Torvill and Dean, and even some Les Mis-style flag-waving. And if the storytelling gets a bit lost in the epic scale, then that ultimately becomes forgivable thanks to the sheer ambition of the project.

In the end, it’s more an abstract impression of all things love-related, rather than a narrative journey, but the visuals are sensational and the technical excellence undeniable. As I said, she sure knows how to put on a show.