Dancing on Ice (The Final 12) - Judge Cole & Rees' Verdict

Continuing with my Dancing on Ice commentary, tonight saw the first round of the competition proper.

Tonight, this is a joint Judging effort by myself and my Alyson.

But first of all, as I've done over previous weeks, we start with a vintage performance by Torvill and Dean. This time it's the 1982 World Skating Championships in Copenhagen and another of my favourite routines of theirs - 'Mack and Mable'.

This is what I'm talking about...




The 2011 In-Take
We're now down to the final 12 contestants for the competition proper. The judge's marks now count for half so it's beginning to get serious.

First up was Vanilla Ice. Admittedly Alyson and I were late in tuning in and missed his performance but from seeing the replay later in the programme, he looked solid and made good lifts as he did in his qualifier. Next up was Chloe Madeley who we just got back from supper to watch. As with her qualifier, it was a smooth and quick routine and certainly makes her one to watch in future weeks. Next up was Denise Welch who came in on her own which was a good start but it all fell away from there with what seemed to be stuttering performance. Dominic Cork gave a nervous performance having given a promising debut last week. Laura Hamilton was very good and gave an accomplished account of herself. Our Ashley (Steve Arnold) bless him was slow and compared to his colleagues, performed a very basic routine. Jeff Brazier's timing was poor and was ungraceful with his moves - particularly with his arms but had a good verbal joust with Judge Jason. Dave Vitty has a big fanbase and is going to need it because on the basis of tonight's performance was slow and pretty basic in comparison to his non-Ashley colleagues. Jennifer Metcalfe also came in solo and gave a fast, fun, great performance and made up for her slipped lift last week. Sam Attwater was by a wide margin the best of the night. He had power, grace and speed and performed his big lift with ease. Johnson Beharry isn't Alyson's favourite but he made a solid if unspectacular addition to tonight's show. Finally, Kerry Katona looked nervy and didn't expand on her qualifying potential.

The Skate-Off
On the performances on the night, we felt that the bottom two should be our Ashely (Steve Arnold) and Dave Vitty.

But in the end, his fan base saved Comedy Dave. Dominic Cork was going to be in trouble after his performance so finding him in the bottom two with our Ashley wasn't a huge shock. In the final amalysis,  Steve Arnold was always going to be voted off tonight having fallen into the bottom two.

Goodbye Ashley. It was fun, but your time is up.

So next week, we're down to the final 11...