Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill will be showing off their skating prowess in this week’s episode of Dancing On Ice.
The judges and ice dancers, best known for winning a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics, have been skating five times a week from September to perform for the first time in front of a full live audience since the pandemic.
Dean, 64, and Torvill, 65, will be doing a fast tango-style routine to Canadian singer Michael Buble’s Higher on the ITV show on Sunday as it returns for the second episode of the series.
— Jayne and Chris (@torvillanddean) January 4, 2023
Their nearly 49-years of partnership has translated into an “unspoken connection” and “sixth sense” on and off the ice, according to Dean.
Dean said: “It’s funny that I’ll pick up the phone and call Jayne and she’ll just say, at that moment, ‘I was just going to call you’.”
He added: “Some days we’ll turn up somewhere, we’ve got sort of matching clothes in some way and then we’ll organise something similar to each other.”
Torvill agreed, saying: “So it’s almost like your minds are reading each other’s mind and, and then you start to say it.”
She added: “We’ve been together for so long and we grew up together as teenagers.”
Torvill also said they are both conscious of their synchronicity while judging Dancing On Ice so they do not repeat the other’s remarks.
“It’s not often we don’t give the same mark and that’s not because we’ve decided to give the same mark,” she added.
“It’s what we think and comments wise, when we watch a performance, they’re all very similar, but we try, not to say the same thing.”
Both said they were impressed by Nile Wilson last week for his emotional dance to Harry Styles’ Sign Of The Times and were most looking forward to the first drag queen on Dancing On Ice, The Vivienne, giving a performance on episode two.
Dean added: “When we first saw everybody, for the first time, I think Nile stood out at that point, because he was very determined to get things right.
“And there was one particular move that we gave him, that he just wouldn’t stop doing it until he could do it – so, dogged determination.
“But also, I was quite taken by The Vivienne who had a similar mindset.”
Torvill agreed the RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner’s skate skills look “really strong”.
Last week, Wilson received the highest score of the night from the judges of 29.5 while Love Island winner Ekin-Su Culculoglu found herself in the bottom following a public vote.
She will now face one of five celebrities who will compete next week after six contestants performed in the first episode on Sunday.
Dean said he also often feels “sorry” for the celebrities as they learn in such a short space of time what he and Torvill have perfected over decades.
Torvill added: “What I like about this year’s group of celebrities, they all seem very passionate about it, they really want to do well.”
However, Dean and Torvill did disagree on who they would like to see next on Dancing On Ice as the former opted for actress Margot Robbie, who chronicled ice skater Tonya Harding’s life in I, Tonya, and the latter went for former England footballer David Beckham.
Dean said Diversity dance troupe founder Ashley Banjo and former Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse, who also serve as judges on the show, offer a different judging viewpoint.
He added: “They’re looking at it from a performance point of view and a dance point of view and a timing point of view. So they’re experienced dancers in their own right.”
Dancing on Ice continues Sunday on ITV1 and ITVX.