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Holiday on Ice

The wonders of Whitley BayIt was launched during the second world war and still goes on in a big chilly shed somewhere in the world, but this never-ending (in all senses) ‘ice spectacular’ will forever be associated in the British mind with that period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, when it was guaranteed a sizeable chunk of a particularly drab bank holiday afternoon on BBC1, ensuring a mass exodus over to the film of Bless This House on the other side. Initially a feathered homage to Busby Berkeley (but on ice skates), latterly a bunch of people in rubbery costumes falling over a lot (but on ice skates), it’s chiefly remembered, aside from stinking out the schedules, for that ever-increasing ‘let’s all link arms and spin round the rink in a big long line’ climax that was so easily replicable round your local rink. Holiday… didn’t exist in its own sequinned time bubble, however, latching on to flavours of the moment such as Snoopy in 1976 and disco in, er, 1985.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. iStuart

    February 9, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    This thing comes to the Brighton Centre every new year and seems to stay for an eternity. Every time I walk past and see those 3 awful words reminds me of way back when mummy used to like it and I hated it so I had to go and play with my stickle bricks for some amusement (I hadn’t yet reached the age where I could amuse myself purely by using a particular part of my own body.)

    By the way, the massive amount of refrigeration equipment waist deep in permafrost at the back of the building has on each container: “Holiday on Ice, Museumplein, Amsterdam”. So it’s the Dutch we have to blame.

  2. televisualcabbage

    February 9, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    Ah yes, but you knew it was coming upto Christmas when adverts for this started to appear on TVS… Book now for the event of the seaon!

    No, thanks… I’m happy enough sitting in front of MInder on the Orient Express with a box of Quality Street…

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