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I am a huge fan of Dancing on Ice and after going to the live tour last year I was back there again at the Manchester Evening News Arena on Saturday 18^th April 2009 for the Bolero Tour.

The lights went down and the professional skaters took to the ice dressed in Victorian costumes of black, white and purple with white masks on. The routine was seamless and captivating to watch. The circular lighting unit in the middle was slowly lowered down and a white drape dropped down to hide what was going on behind. Images flashed across the drape of countries who had taken part in the 1984 Olympics; when the drapes dropped to the ice Torvill and Dean were there in position to start the world famous Bolero routine.

The first half of the show was set out like the TV programme; each celebrity skater danced one of their favourites from the series and the judges marked them out of a possible 6. The panel was made up of Karen, Robin, Ruthie, Nicky and a surprise judge; in my case Salty from Real Radio. Andie Peters hosted the event with Jane and Chris offering their comments. The celebrity skaters were; Kyran Bracken, Todd Carty, Melinda Messenger, Roxanne Pallett, Ray Quinn, Zoe Salmon, Suzanne Shaw, Jessica Taylor and my personal favourite Chris Fountain.

All the celebrity skaters were excellent, with those who were from past series skating to new routines. Todd Carty provided the biggest laugh with his routine of ‘Help’ by the Beatles and even managed to stay on his feet throughout the performance. The technical footwork and lifts by the likes of Ray and Chris were amazing to watch.

During the interval the audience could text with the person they wanted to skate Bolero in the final. Like the TV programme those were added to the judges scores and the top 2 fought it out to be champion of that particular show.

The second half started with a dance by Matt Evers, Dan Whiston and Frankie Poultney. They were amazing and the routine, lifts, footwork -breathtaking. You actually held your breath on some of the lifts wondering how on earth they did it and made it look so easy and seamless to the routine.

After that each of the celebrities skated one more routine and there were two performances from the professionals; Alexandra Schaumann and Lukasz Rozycki and Melanie Lambert and Fred Palascak (my favourite). Both routines were captivating to watch as they glided across the ice in perfect harmony to each other.

At the end the celebrities all came back onto the ice whilst the two finalist were announced; it was Ray and Chris, which I was really happy with as it meant I got to see Chris skate Bolero. They both did fantastic performances; however, the judges voted for Ray to win…..was not happy!!! The finale was an upbeat number with all the professionals, celebrities and Jane and Chris taking to the ice to skate one final performance. The whole show was breathtaking from start to finish and I’ll be going back again next year.