Torvill and Dean, on eve of Our Last Dance Sydney tour, speak with Peter FitzSimmons

Fitz: What is it?

Torvill: Bolero is obviously a very special routine because it opened the door for the future, and we wouldn’t still be doing what we’re doing without that.

Fitz: So let’s go back to the romance one! The personal chemistry and physical intimacy that you two display on ice as you dance is so wonderful; it dinkum is amazing that you can do it without ever having been a couple. Was there never a time, Chris, when you said to Jayne, surely, “Let’s go and see a film Saturday night?” And she said, “No, forget it.”

Dean: No, never like that. We have spent a lot of time together, seeing movies, going for drinks, and the theatre, all of those things. And of course, we’ve been together on many long tours, like when we were touring Australia for the first time. We were meant to be coming for just two weeks, but ended up staying for three months doing shows, and then stayed a further nine months putting a show together. So we were in Sydney area for almost a year, and we made lots of friends.

Fitz: [Painfully persisting] So never in that year, two young English athletes a long way from home, did you exchange smouldering looks over your Vegemite on toast …

Torvill: No, our main focus was getting the work done. You know, we had just turned professional, and for us, it was an exciting time in that we weren’t competing any more, and we didn’t have any rules and regulations of competition. So, in fact, you know, we were free to be more creative, which is something that we’ve always enjoyed.

Fitz: What about blues, then? There must have come a time over the last 45 years when you two were dancing, when Chris lifted you up, Jayne, so you could do a twirly gig and the booger didn’t catch you properly? Surely, there must have been times where, to use the Australian expression, you came an absolute cropper, occasioning strong words?

Torvill: No. Lucky for us, we never did have any major falls in competition, which is what counts. Falls in training, you accept. But we trained so hard that to be ready for anything, that we didn’t really make any mistakes. So, no “blues”.

Fitz: Moving on! By some reckoning, the pop group ABBA was said to be a bigger success in Australia, even than in Sweden. There was something about ABBA that Australia, more than pretty much any other country, loved. Is it possible that the same applies to you two – that Australia loves Torvill and Dean more than even Britain loves Torvill and Dean, and that we loved you more than anywhere else on Earth.

Dean: Maybe. When we first came to Australia, it was such a surprise for us to be so welcomed. The Australian promoter had pre-booked the Russian Olympic figure-skating team, thinking that they would win everything at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, and they didn’t. We did. And so the promoter said, “We’ve got to get those bloody Poms down here”. And so within a very short time, somebody came over to see us and gave us a contract, and we came down to Australia and we were adored. I mean, they tell the story of when the tickets first went on sale, that the line instantly formed up right round the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

Fitz: Which is very odd, yes? Because in Sydney, we’re surfers, netballers, cricketers, footballers, but not really, as a people, ice skaters – with only a rink or two open on a good day?

Dean: Yeah, I think what happened, Channel Nine were the host broadcasters at the Olympics, and we became very popular because they gave us a lot of air time. And we became the base of promoting the Winter Olympics in Australia. And there were also a lot of British expats who took to us, right?

Fitz: Whatever else, our love affair with you has been enduring. We also have a saying that a person has had “more comebacks than Dame Nellie Melba”, lately replaced by “more farewell tours than Johnny Farnham”. Whoever, with you two, came up with the title for your tour, Our Last Dance, has to be commended because it captures the imagination. But seriously, seriously, when you perform your last dance in Sydney [at Qudos on Sunday afternoon], when you come off the ice, is that really going to be it for you two? Your last dance?

Dean: It will certainly be our last performance skating in Australia. But then we go back to Nottingham, our hometown, and we actually do four performances there, and then on the last day, that will be our last skating performance, live skating performance, that we will do. You know, we’ve been skating together now for 50 years, and we think that that’s a good round number to sort of call it a day from the performing side. And the body is ready to say it’s time as well.

Fitz: But don’t you think that five years from now, one of you might say, “I’m in your town, I’m going to put on a red wig. You put on a blonde one, and I’ll see you down at the rink, and just one last time in the moonlight, let’s dance?”

Torvill: It’s not to say that we won’t ever skate on the ice together, but we won’t actually be performing together. So we may be together like choreographing or teaching somebody. We’ll do other things together, but just not performing. This is it.

Fitz: Chris? Don’t you think that you might just do it one more time in the moonlight, when you’re 80, one more time to capture the magic, one more time without anybody knowing, just the two of you?

Dean: [Thoughtfully] I’m not saying that we won’t do that … but it’s not something that we would show off to anybody … It would be personal.

Fitz: Bingo! Now, without being too mealy-mouthed about it, your dancing ability on ice must be comparable, in terms of how much it’s celebrated, to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Did you two ever watch footage of their dancing and swoon?

T & D: Yes!

Dean: They were very much a part of our viewing, and we took a lot from them in their style and the movement and their performance quality. Yeah, absolutely, they were our idols.

Fitz: You mentioned that you two have been doing it for 50 years. That means – dot three, carry one, subtract two – you must have started in the mid-′70s. How much have your physical abilities waned? Are there many things you used to be able to do that you simply cannot do now?

Torvill: There are things that have got harder as we got older, and we’re no longer 25, but we still feel that we can put on a show that we’re happy with. And we’ve put it together with some amazing [younger] skaters from around the world. So we’re really excited by the show, and the show itself tells a story, our story, right from the beginning up until now.

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Fitz: When Mick Jagger was 23 years old, he said, “I hope I’m not still singing Can’t Get No Satisfaction when I’m 30”. Could you two have conceived that you’d still be going 50 years later? And would you have been thrilled?

Torvill: No and yes. We would never have imagined it would have been possible. Back then, when skaters turned professional, they would maybe do two years, three years in a professional show, and then, you know, sort of maybe go into teaching or just retire anyway. We’ve just been so lucky with the way things happened for us – that we were able to create several different tours, and then go back to the Olympics in ’94 because that became a possibility, and that extended our professional careers.

Dean: And then, in more recent times, television people came and said, would we be interested in teaching celebrities to skate? And that’s when Dancing on Ice was born. And that extended us, too.

Fitz: All right, one last question. I’ve got two tragically proud boasts in my life. The first is that I was once sent off against the All Blacks for violence. The second is that I have danced on ice with Torvill & Dean. I shot a story for Channel Nine’s Today Show in the early ’90s, which involved me skating around with you two. Do you two happen to remember it?

Torvill. [Uncertainly] No, I don’t remember it. Because we’ve had a number of occasions, Peter, where we’ve skated around with a presenter, a program or a journalist …

Fitz: [Brightly] I was the one where you looked at me, Jayne, with the expression of “How has it come to this? I am on the ice with a rhinoceros …”

Torvill: No …

Fitz: I’ll send it to you! Thank you for your time, and bravo your Last Dance in Sydney. Fare thee well.

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