SLEEPING BEAUTY ON ICE (UK Tour) Review October 2013

This week, the New Alexandra Theatre stage is unlikely to be as you've ever seen it before. Covered in over 14 tonnes of ice the stage is set for the Imperial Ice Stars and their production of Sleeping Beauty On Ice which runs until Saturday. 

Artistic director of the company Tony Mercer presents something very special here - the opportunity to see ice dancing in the intimacy of a theatre as opposed to on television or a large arena - it's almost like a different medium. You can really appreciate the skill required in such proximity. Just as a ballet tells the story of the Sleeping Beauty through gesture and it's own dance style, the ice dancing does too - it's very different but achieves the same result. With this we have speed unlike any other show, daring and exciting lifts and a conglomeration of catches, spins, leaps, flying, arial stunts, fire... you name it!

Olga Sharutenko and Bogdan Berezenko (Photograph by Phil Hitchman)

ITV's Dancing On Ice professional and World Champion figure skater Olga Sharutenko is Princess Aurora, the girl destined to prick her finger and succumb to an endless sleep - only to be woken by true love's kiss in the shape of Prince Désiré - Bogdan Berezenko. Both command the ice with the highest level of skill, dazzling costumes, beautiful lifts and flying. I wish that I could comment with more understanding of ice dancing but I do believe that this should impress even the most knowledgeable. 

Other roles worthy of mention are Aleksei Vasilev as Catalabutte and Svitlana Pylypenko as his assistant - although these are comedy roles the skaters must still execute the finest performance and they in particular get time to shine. Iuliia Odintcova and Jurijs Salmanovs as Carabosse and her shadow skate a much a harsher show. Far from the delicacy of the royal skaters this duo have a faster, more daring job performed equally as impressive. 

Jurijs Salmanovs and Iuliia Odintcova (Photograph by Phil Hitchman)

The scenic design by Eamon D'Arcy consists mostly of backdrops, beautifully detailed and enough to make up for the fact that other scenery is impossible with the ice rink taking up all available space. The use of a pre-recorded soundtrack does lack the grandeur of a live band but by no means takes away from the incredible production. 

If your reason for not going to the theatre is a hot and stuffy auditorium - you've no excuses here! That chill is soon forgotten about as this incredible cast soon heat things up with an unforgettable show. Unlike any usual evening of theatre, make the most of your chance to catch Sleeping Beauty On Ice at the Birmingham New Alexandra Theatre until Saturday 12th October 2013. Book tickets here. 

Find out more about the ice and listen to interviews with the cast and crew here. 

Cast List: Vasilii Andreev, Yulia Ashcheulova, Maksim Beliakov, Bogdan Berezenko, Anastasia Ignatyeve, Ekaterina Ivleva, Pavlo Khimich, Volodymyr Khodakivskyy, Fiona Kirk, Yahor Maistrou, Konstantin Medovikov, Artur Minchuck, Maria Mukhortova, Svetlana Nalimova, Iuliia Odintcova, Svitlana Pylypenko, Jurijs Salmanovs, Alina Saprykina, Olga Sharutenko, Anna Silaeva, Tatiana Smirnova, Danil Tataurov, Olga Tataurova, Oleg Tazetdinov, Alesksei Vasilev.

SLEEPING BEAUTY ON ICE (UK Tour) Birmingham Press Launch

The summer is all but a distant memory and it won't be long until Birmingham is really feeling the winter chill. Jumpers and scarves however are already a necessity at the New Alexandra Theatre this week as the Imperial Ice Stars take over the stage. 

The acclaimed production of Sleeping Beauty On Ice takes nearly 24 hours to get into a venue and for the entirety of its run, the freezers are on! Walking into an unusually cold auditorium, Dancing On Ice professional and World Champion figure skater Olga Sharutenko greeted members of the press with cast members Bogdan Berezenko, Iuliia Odintcova and Jurijs Salmanovs.

As part of the day's activities I took to the ice with Olga and Bogdan for my very first ice skating lesson. I was petrified, but if I was ever going to do it, this was the time. Clung to the world champion figure skaters I tentatively made my way across the stage. I didn't think it was possible to sweat so much in such cold temperatures but I thoroughly enjoyed my first time on the ice! Would I do it again? With my world champion teachers of course but I can't see myself attempting it solo at Solihull Ice Rink!

It is a smile... just about! (Photograph by Phil Hitchman)

Between them, the cast have won over 250 competition medals, most of whom started skating from a very young age - some as young as 3! 44 people tour with the show including performers, technicians and a doctor with a further 17 people required at each venue. The freight of the whole show is approximately 25,000kg - the equivalent of 70 grand pianos.

Talking about the ice, production manager Bruno Hunt said: "To set the ice it's quite simple, we keep spraying the surface until it freezes over but to break it, that's really hard! About half way through the last show at a venue we'll turn the chillers down to about -12 and that makes the ice brittle and easier to smash. After the final show we go out in lines and smash it, shovel it into wheelbarrows and get it out of the building ... then we've got a lot of mopping up to do!"

An ice version of a show is completely different to what you would expect from a ballet version, as director Tony Mercer explains: "A lot of the time companies will just say 'copy the ballet' but that's not the right idea at all. Ice dancing is fabulous as we all saw with Torvill and Dean and their Bolero - ice dancing can tell a story just as well as ballet can, so why try to mimic ballet. Of course, it's balletic in style but I put together Imperial Ice Stars so that I could bring to the stage the kind of ice dancing I wanted to see."

Olga Sharutenko & Bogdan Berezenko (Photograph by Phil Hitchman)

You can listen to longer clips from the interviews with Bruno Hunt (Production Manager), Tony Mercer (Artistic Director/Choreographer), Bogdan Berezenko (Prince Désiré) and Olga Sharutenko (Princess Aurora) in the podcast below. 

Sleeping Beauty On Ice runs at the Birmingham New Alexandra Theatre until Saturday 12 October 2013. You can book tickets here.