A world, in ice-dance...

IT’S comforting to know that at every major stage of the earth’s development, since it cooled and crusted 4,500 million years ago, ice dance has been there to capture the occasion.

The latest case of ambition overcoming plausibility for the Russian Ice Stars company, which previously stuck to spinning out overlong, icy versions of “Cinderella”, “Beauty and the Beast” and the like, is a mixture of “Planet Earth - New Age Version”, a circus, and — what all the punters come for — ice dancing.

To say that it is entertaining tosh undermines the attraction of some forms of tosh.

A couple of years ago Amanda Thompson, who directs some terrific ice shows at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, attempted a similar mixture of Cirque du Soleil-style New Age-iness and circus without the ice. It was repetitive and had a silly storyline.

This is the same kind of show, but with the ice put back in.

To be honest, what circusy, ice-skatey stuff there is, played out under a barrage of sound and rock-show lighting, is great, and I guess that’s what the healthy audience was applauding enthusiastically at the close. The big company of ice skaters is, as usual, packed with former champions who know their stuff and can turn on a sixpence. There’s masses of colour, back-projections, extravagant costumes and much more.

But since this isn’t billed as a circus ice-show but “an ice show beyond imagination”, we might expect something more inspiring.

But ice-dancing and circus, inspiring? Do me a favour. The cheesy storyline exists merely as cues for extravagant settings and costumes and ever-more icy circling of the stage.

It even has a narrative voice-over, which reminded me of the terrible poems the Moody Blues’ Graeme Edge once put on the band’s albums at the height of their pomposity in the Seventies. You half expect a couple of big chords followed by Justin Hayward’s whine to chime in...

Why do ice-dance companies do it? I have no objection to shows like this that remain what they are: fast, colourful and entertainingly camp.

But 4.5 billion years in two hours of ice-dance and spangly costumes? Inspiring isn’t quite the right word...