ASPIRING young blades seeking a career with Amanda Thompson's Hot Ice show should walk on a bed of hot coals, swim the Channel upright and slay a dragon single-handed. It would be easier!

Such is the standard that would now be demanded of them.

We have come to expect stunning costume displays accompanied by dazzling laser effects at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Arena.

Predictably, after last year's success, we again have the miraculous airborne acrobatics highlighted by fibre-optics drawing gasps of appreciation. And why not?

In Hot Ice '96, however, it is the sheer perfection of the skating inspired by Phil Winston's choreography which catches the eye despite the formidable competition from the side-effects.

Did I say eye? There is so much happening on the ice and there are so many superb individual performances in the opening number, Birth of a New Era, that several pairs of eyes would be required to fully absorb the array of talent on offer. This team of skaters gathered from the four corners of the earth is honed to a perfection which, with its hour upon hour of practice and self-denial, makes slaying dragons look like chicken feed.

They show great courage as well as skill and are prepared to take chances for their art - and art it is - with figures you would die for. And that's only the men!

The females - and what females! - positively risk life and limb in a series of hands-on routines for which they have got to know their partner very well. And trust him a lot, too!

So as Hot Ice reaches standards ever higher, we ask ourselves the question athletes do as world records push the spirit of human endeavour ever farther. How long before this show cannot be bettered?

Hot Ice officials say it is the best ice show in the world - and they have seen them all.

They would say that, do I hear you say, although Lorraine Trangmar, director of Stageworks, the show's production company, says it with a confidence and honesty which is convincing.

What is clear is that Hot Ice is now so good that it is outgrowing its spirtiual home at the Pleasure Beach with its crowd restriction of 1,600.

It deserves a newer, bigger stadium with facilities to train British skaters to the standard of these wonderful young imports from Russia, Italy, Spain, Finland and the likes.

So is anyone out there listening who might point some lottery funding in Blackpool's direction? Then we will have the best skaters in Britain in the best ice show in the world.

In the meantime, I'll settle for saying what I say every year. This year's ice show is the best ice show yet . . .

BOB GRAY

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.