Film: Torvill and Dean

Tonight, I had a peek at Torvill and Dean, on tv. Of course, I knew who they were - although this did jog my memory somewhat. Multi-winning British ice skaters, famous for their Olympic gold-winning performance to the music of Bolero.

And it's very engaging! Well worth a look, if you come across it. Plenty of behind-the-scenes stories of how they came from nowhere, two Nottingham kids interested in ice skating, and eventually - ice skating being rather a small world - their teacher decided to pair them together. 

And the rest is history. Kind of. We still get plenty of behind-the-scenes angst, disagreements, sexual tension, injury, family problems. The thorny question of whether (or when) to give up the day jobs. And as they start to win stuff, they set their sights on bigger goals. There's a bit of skating in the film - not enough to be repetitive. The reproduction of life in the late 70s / early 80s (the film itself is quite recent) is interesting - particularly when they arrive in Sarajevo for the fateful Winter Olympics in a Trabant belching fumes, to be put up in typically spartan-looking Soviet accommodation! with suspicious-looking Soviets constantly giving them the eye..

I love how, apparently, Jayne Torvill hated Bolero at first. And most of the thought of the film obviously went into the preparation for that performance. The passion with which Christopher Dean describes his idea to her is catching - I haven't heard anything so inspiring in ages. And the tension as the competition approaches - the most important of their lives - is beautifully built. Watch out, also, for the overawed parents arriving in the stands, dad with a packed lunch..

Predictably, for the performance itself, they use snatches of the real thing. And it ends with their perfect scores. Yep, well worth a look.

Gotta get to bed - I'm already up too late! given that the London Irish Centre is live on Facebook with storytelling tomorrow morning, 11am BST.

This weekend is all about Up in the Cheap Seats. Tomorrow afternoon, I'm seeing a remake of Beauty and the Beast with them, broadcast by Chichester Festival Theatre.

On Sunday, we're on YouTube, watching a production of Hairspray, with Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande. Part of Andrew Lloyd Webber's channel, The Shows Must Go On.

And on Monday (or thereabouts), London Literary Walks gives the results to the final (sigh) round of their quiz..