Hottest show in town (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Hottest show in town

3:26pm Friday 3rd September 2010 in Travel By Emma Clayton

Blackpool’s historic Pleasure Beach Arena is filled with the sound of crackling ice. A spotlight settles on a lone blade, spiralling across a patch of ice at breakneck speed. As the lights dazzle, flashes of steel signal the start of Hot Ice, one of the world’s most spectacular ice shows.

Breath-taking lifts and stunts are woven into romantic, witty, action-packed routines performed by a 28-strong troupe of world-class skaters. Featuring 250 costumes and an array of lights and pyrotechnics, the show is a riot of colour, taking audiences through Vegas cabarets, Viennese ballrooms, African jungles, smouldering Cuban streets, Emerald Isle forests and New York jazz clubs.

Skaters fly 30ft above the rink, as fire-balls erupt on the ice surface. A glimmering staircase appears, illuminated with 700 lightbulbs, and the ice dancers spin, leap and glide across the rink using a range of props, including whips, a bicycle, even a huge ‘hamster wheel’.

Fast-paced and packed full of stunts and spectacular special effects, at times it’s like watching a Busby Berkeley spectacular unfolding on a shimmering frozen stage.

Hot Ice follows a long tradition of ice shows in Blackpool. Skating spectaculars have been thrilling audiences at the Pleasure Beach since 1937, with Winston Churchill and Torvill and Dean among spectators over the years.

The show is performed in the 1,566-seat arena, part of the Pleasure Beach for more than 70 years. Producer and director Amanda Thompson is managing director of Pleasure Beach, Blackpool Group.

The great-grandaughter of Pleasure Beach founder William George Bean, Amanda follows in his footsteps as head of the tourist attraction. As president of Stageworks Worldwide Productions, the entertainment division of Pleasure Beach, she devises stage and ice shows worldwide with such choreographers as Olympic champion Robin Cousins.

Amanda describes Hot Ice as “a pure canvas”, where creativity explodes like a colourful painting, with “flashes of steel across the ice, like magpies picking up glistening trinkets.”

Dressed in fabulous costumes festooned with feathers and rhinestones, the skaters – all international figure-skating champions – have the power, speed and strength of trained athletes and the grace and elegance of ballerinas, balancing on an edge of steel. One couple draw gasps when the male skater lifts his female partner with one hand, before she ends up lying across his head, spinning around unsupported!

To a toe-tapping score comprising swing, pop, big band, Latin and African tribal beats, the ice dancers move with razor-sharp precision, breaking off for romantic pas de deux and dramatic tangos, or breathtaking stunts involving fire torches, silk scarves, even a bath full of water.

After the show it was a short walk back to the Big Blue Hotel, at the south end of the Pleasure Beach. The decor is contemporary chic, with a sink-into sofa, flat-screen TV and WiFi internet access, and my spacious room overlooked the seafront.

The stylish four-star hotel is a haven of calm and cool chic among the fast-paced thrills of the Pleasure Beach, and it’s within walking distance of Blackpool’s main attractions. Family room facilities include bunk-beds and Playstation connections, and de-luxe suites have Juliet balconies overlooking the Pleasure Beach.

As a child I loved Blackpool and it still holds a special place in my heart. I’m always excited by the sight of Blackpool Tower rising in the distance.

Today’s Blackpool blends a sense of seaside resort history, fun and contemporary chic; with a smart, re-vamped promenade spanning the famous Golden Mile and stylish restaurants and bars dotted among the traditional attractions.

Old-fashioned elegance is captured in the magnificent Tower Ballroom, with its crystal chandeliers glittering above couples waltzing around to the Wurlitzer organ. Blackpool trams trundle along the seafront, beneath the world famous illuminations set to sparkle this autumn.

The Blackpool Illuminations, which started life in 1879, keep the seaside town buzzing well into the autumn. Spanning ten kilometres and using more than a million bulbs, the dazzling spectacle includes hundreds of designs lit up with lasers, neon lights, fibre optics and floodlighting. Landmark buildings, hotels and even trams twinkle.

This year’s switch-on ceremony is on September 3 and, for the first time, will take place on the Tower Headland, a newly-constructed area near Blackpool Tower. The illuminations will be twinkling until November 7.

Further up the Golden Mile is the Pleasure Beach, a place I’ve loved ever since I went on the Alice In Wonderland ride, aged four. Currently spanning 42 acres, it started life, in 1896, with just one ride. Today there are more than 125 rides and attractions, from boneshakers like the Cat And Mouse and the Big Dipper, which have thrilled generations since before the Second World War, to the latest attraction, Infusion; a white-knuckle journey over loops and rolls, with a double-line twist. Screaming daredevils duck and dive around a spectacular fountain, dodging jets of water, and dart through a cascading waterfall.

I love Avalanche, a bobsleigh sending you twisting along at 50mph, the Revolution and the Grand National. Then there’s the IceBlast, catapulting thrill-seekers up a 210ft tower at 80mph and down again for an exhilarating free-fall descent, and the ‘diamond-knuckle’ Bling lifting riders a whopping 100ft above the ground and spinning them through the air on giant gondolas at speeds of over 60mph. High in the sky above the Big Blue Hotel stands the Pepsi Max Big One, one of Europe’s tallest, fastest rollercoasters. Plunging down its 235ft sheer drop, with speeds of 85mph gathering, I feel as invincible as an ice dancer spiralling through the air.