THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP151 - TORVILL AND DEAN

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Adam talks with British sporting legends Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.This episode was recorded remotely on July 1st, 2020.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and to Anneka Myson for additional editing. Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSMARIE CURIETORVILL AND DEAN WEBSITETORVILL AND DEAN - BOLERO - 1984 WINNING ROUTINE (YOUTUBE)TORVILL AND DEAN - THE RETURN (BBC DOCUMENTARY) - 1994 (YOUTUBE)THE PERFECT DAY - TORVILL AND DEAN (BBC DOCUMENTARY) - 2014 (YOUTUBE)PIERS MORGAN'S LIFE STORIES - TORVILL AND DEAN - 2013 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Joined today in the fields of East Anglia by Rosie Buxton.

Half whippet, half poodle, all great friend. Rosie is up ahead, still on the mend, after a bout of ill health a few weeks back. A little bit up and down, but she's much perkier on the whole. I imagine that she is pretty pleased that she has somehow wangled a full-time spot on the marital bed. My wife's very happy about it too. Oh, it's so nice having her there. She's so sweet. She's no trouble. She curls up. Yeah, kind of. I didn't get that much sleep last night because she was curled up right in the middle of my side. I kept on waking up to find her all luxuriously stretched out. Reminded me of when the children were small, which I suppose is quite nice, but a little bit uncomfortable.

But what's the weather like, buckles? Well, I would say, eh, that's how the weather forecasts will be in the future. Just a noise. Mmm. Brr. Phew. Uh-oh. Yew. And today it's, eh.

Right, geese? After a few very spring-like days, it's gone massively grey. It's like a blank day. Anyway, luckily I'm able to plug the greyness with a riot of podcasting colour, courtesy of my guests today for podcast number 151. They are, of course, the English ice dancers and former British, European, Olympic and world champions, Jane Torville and Christopher Dean.

Are they the first sports people to have appeared on the podcast? I'm sure they're not the first people who like sport that I've spoken to, even though some of you may know sport is a fairly low priority for me. But I think they might be the first professional sports people on the podcast so far. Torval and Dean Facts. Jane, age 63 as I speak. Hope Jane doesn't mind me mentioning her age at the top there. I mention the age of many of my guests, as regular listeners will know, just because, I don't know, I just like knowing people's age. Doesn't really change the way I behave towards them, I hope. Or does it? Anyway, Jane grew up in Nottingham, UK,

where she skated from the age of eight, eventually partnering up with Christopher Dean when she was 18. Christopher, currently aged 62, grew up in Lancashire, leaving school aged 16 to become a police cadet. Not long after joining the force, he met Jane at the Nottingham ice rink, and once they'd made the decision to partner up, they trained together for the next six years or so. It didn't all happen on the same day, that decision, like meeting and the decision to partner up. It kind of sounded that way, the way I've written this they trained together for the next six years or so until in 1980 the pair placed fifth at the winter olympics in lake placid at which point chris left the police force and jane quit her job as an insurance clerk at the norwich union to concentrate

full time on the ice i was going to put a clip of Ice Ice Baby in at this point, but then I thought, no. Just four years later, at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, Jane and Chris won gold for Britain with a routine set to the music of Ravel's Bolero. You know the one. Ice Ice Baby routine set to the music of Ravel's Bolero. You know the one. Torville and Dean were awarded the perfect six score for the routine's artistic merit by every judge that year,

a record that remains unbroken to this day and a cultural moment that not only helped define the 1980s but is generally considered one of the greatest sporting moments of all time oh it's just good fun doing all these superlatives here after Sarajevo Jane and Chris turned professional delighting audiences for the next decade with a series of ambitious ice dancing shows until in 1994 a change to winter olympic rules that previously excluded professional skaters saw jane and chris returning to olympic competition this time in the norwegian town of lillehammer and winning the bronze medal the next few years saw jane and and Chris taking a skate break during which time they picked up an OBE

to add to the MBEs they'd been awarded at the World Figure Skating Championships in 1981 but in 2006 they were coaxed out of retirement to take part in ITV's Dancing on Ice for which they served as creative directors and mentors to the contestants until 2014 and for the last few years they've been part of the judging panel as creative directors and mentors to the contestants until 2014. And for the last few years, they've been part of the judging panel.

My conversation with Jane and Chris took place via the Zoom at the beginning of July last year, 2020, with Jane talking to me from her home in East Sussex, where she lives with her husband and two children, while Chris, also a father of two grown-up sons, was at his home in Colorado Springs, USA. After finding out how they'd been doing during the first months of the COVID pandemic, I asked them about how their journey as sporting legends began.

They also told me about the secrets of maintaining their magical chemistry and negotiating the stresses and strains of double act dynamics and i got to pass on a few gushing comments from a torville and dean mega fan my wife but we began by establishing how we came to be in touch in the first place back at the end with a little bit more waffle but right right now with Torvill and Dean. Here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat.

Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat La la la la la la la La la la la la la la La la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la It's nice to meet you. Thank you so much for doing this. I feel I know you, Adam, because I've been listening to your podcast for the last few months having lockdown. So I was going out for bike rides or walks or hikes and you were accompanying me. Because I was going to ask, like, which one? This is one of the few occasions.

I hope you don't mind me saying, that a guest has got in touch with me rather than the other way around initially and made contact. And I love it when that happens. It has the effect of making me a little bit more relaxed. You know what I mean? I feel as if half the battle has been won. I always get nervous that people are going to be eyeing me suspiciously going, who's this prat? I always get nervous that people are going to be eyeing me suspiciously going, who's this prat?

I've listened to many conversations with very smart people, very funny people. Cool. Thanks, man. And Jane, I'm sorry you've been dragged into this. No, no, no. Because Chris has mentioned you before, I have listened to a couple of the podcasts. And now she will become a devotee. And I do it when I'm in the kitchen and I'm cooking or something. So have it on then. Yeah. So, Jane, you are in Sussex, as we speak.

Yes. Where you've lived a long time, I think, right? 1992, yeah. So quite a few years now. And how about you, Chris? You're not in the UK. I'm in Colorado Springs. Yeah. I've lived here for 21 years now, I think.

How did you end up there? I married a girl from here. Right. And what's your COVID situation out there? I think it's the same as everywhere. And America is, you know, experiencing a real spike at the moment. I think, you know, a lot of people are getting sick again, or at least testing positive anyway. But where I am in the Springs, it's not a city, it's sort of a town. And it's sort of a lot of open countryside. Well, I live on the side of a mountain. And so there's a lot of space around. So you don't feel like the walls and concrete around you. It's wooded areas and things like that.

So our TV show, The Dancing on Ice, finished on the 9th of March, or at least I flew home, I think, on the 9th of March, which was a Monday. By Friday, everything was locking down. So we were just in time for me just to get back to America before they started closing the doors. And normally after a season like that anyway, we have a downtime. And so for me, it was just sort of like, oh, well, I'm not going out to do anything for the next however many weeks. So it was sort of a bit normal having said that, you know, going to the store and things change completely it's you know

click and collect kind of thing and i rediscovered jigsaws did you used to be a big uh jigsaw maniac or is this something that's a new passion not particularly i think as a kid you had those jigsaws that had 10 pieces in yeah um so this became a new passion although we've only gone through three to be honest it took a long time i think to get them my kids did one at first we managed to get a big one they both did it i didn't do much of it um and then i found on this website that somebody sent me a link that there was some jigsaw puzzles of Chris and I. I think I ordered three of them because I just thought it was funny to do a jigsaw of Chris and I. And when they came, what was quite daunting is the backgrounds, everything's white. Right.

So you can't even make the edges properly because we're in a position, but everything else is white. So I gave up. up no it's very therapeutic that kind of thing when my children were younger and they were into lego me and my brother would get them really crazily complicated lego sets the biggest one being the millennium falcon the star wars lego one and it was really mainly for myself and my brother, and the children didn't really get a look in. I was an Airfix boy when I was a kid. Airfix. Airfix, model aeroplanes.

I was always jealous of those people at school because I thought, how do they do it? I wanted to do it, and as soon as I tried, like the glue would just gloop out, and everything would just get all gluey, and they just didn't look in any way like the ones that the other cool kids were making yeah especially getting the wheels to rotate on the

never or the gun turret doesn't turn or the guns don't go up and down yeah man jane did you ever do anything like that were you that kind of person who would make models and no how did you spend your weekends um i don't know what what age are we talking we're talking teenage years well i was like nine or ten when i was doing those okay i was skating already since i was sort of eight so since you were my yeah my main hobby was was skating so any spare time and certainly the weekends was a big skating time and was that something that came from you was that a passion that you discovered or were your parents encouraging you to do that no no it was just me um one of my teachers at school at primary school said he'd be interested in going to the ice rink

because we the ice rink was in the city and i lived on an estate outside of the city so you're in nottingham right right? Yeah, yeah. And so it seemed like a big adventure and a big group of us went on a bus, went to the local rink and I just fell in love with it from the first time, you know, and I loved watching other skaters who were good skaters.

I kind of was watching them to see what they were doing and seeing what I could learn from them. And what was it about the experience of skating that you really liked? It was just that sort of gliding and freedom feel about it. Chris always says it feels like you're flying. You're not flying, but you have that feeling. Yeah. Well, it feels like you're flying presumably if you're any good at it the first time i went i i loved the look of skating and um the first time i actually

got onto a skating rink the contrast between what it looked like and how it actually was was so dramatic and disappointing to me that i don't I pretty much never did it again because I just thought oh right there's no way you can just get on the ice and start skating I mean I couldn't anyway but did you take to it naturally yourself I mean did you get on the ice the first time Jane and Chris and were you just able to start gliding around within that first session yeah yeah I was able to feel like I was skating I mean I'm not sure how good it was technically or even aesthetically to look at but I did have that feeling of gliding so and and being young the younger you are you're not afraid either and

you're not afraid of falling right and how about you Chris how did you get on smashing it? Well, at school, I was sort of a natural athlete. I used to enjoy all forms of sport, football, gymnastics. So that feeling of movement was always in me. But I got a pair of ice skates for Christmas, and I lived in a place called Calverton which was about 10 miles from Nottingham from where the ice rink was and to actually get into Nottingham it was like going to London or traveling abroad it was as difficult because we didn't always have a car so it took me two weeks before I hit the ice but when I walked in there's this mural at Nottingham Ice Rink that's sort of hand-painted, but it was one of those 1950s sort of murals of these two skaters,

and there was the Alps in the background, and it was just this freedom, and they're sort of launching into the air, mid-air. And I just always remember that picture of saying, that looks beautiful, because I've never been abroad or anything like that or seen mountains like that and so going from that mural in the foyer of the ice rink and then going up these steps into the rink it was almost like the same feeling because it was magical I'd never seen an ice rink before and then when I got onto the ice I remember minimum I fell over 200 times minimum but that didn't put you off no I love the I love the excitement of it you know the feeling of being on the edge um finding that balance and finding that rhythm I remember Chris when he was young before I really

knew him seeing him and he used to go flying around at high speed and like he said he used to fall over a lot he never slowed down he just kept going faster i think my parents were um social dancers ballroom oh yeah or at least my stepmom and my dad and so they wanted me to go and do ice skating but to do dance and i was sort of a little bit more aggressive. And would I do hockey? Would I do speed skating? So they really encouraged me. No, do the dance, do the dance, do the dance. So it's like a reverse Billy Elliot.

You know, when I watched the play Billy Elliot, that was almost a replica. Somebody'd taken my life and put it onto the screen because it was a northern town. I think it was Sheffield wasn't it and I was from Nottingham but it's about minors and my dad was a minor and I started skating dancing when I was young and then I became a policeman and so when the minors were on strike and all of that I was on two sides you know my dad was well he never actually hit the picket line but he had to go on strike

and I was a policeman at various places in the picket line with my big plastic shield keeping the miners back you know it was a really torn time for me really torn I imagine you saw a lot of very upsetting things and you know friends being pitted against each other pardon the pun absolutely yeah no it was it was a difficult time. How did your upbringing compare, Jane? And what was it like meeting Chris for the first time? I grew up on a council estate in Nottingham. My parents both worked.

My dad worked for Raleigh Bicycles. And my mum worked, she was a machinist in the city, in the lace market. It was a pretty normal upbringing. They worked hard to provide for me. As I say, when I first went skating, the school teacher at the time was the one that had the idea. And then it was just pestering my parents. And they thought, oh, she probably won't stick to this. It might just last a few weeks.

thought oh she probably won't stick to this it might just last a few weeks and they bought me a second hand pair of skates which I had for a year before they buy me brand new skates in case I gave up they didn't want to waste the money because money was was tight really yeah very wise and was there a moment ever when one of your teachers said to your parents or someone said like, hang on a second, you're weirdly good. You're unusually good. No, you just went on, had your lesson. And that was that, you know, when you felt that they were pleased with you is when they were going to put you in for the next level of test that you could achieve. I was put together with a skating partner, but that was to do pair skating, which is different to ice dancing.

And had a certain amount of success at that, a junior level, as did Chris with his first skating partner, didn't you? Yeah. I mean, I think to begin with, parents sort of took you there and it was sort of,

they'll leave you there whilst they go shopping. So it was sort of a hobby, a childcare situation to begin with, leave them them there we'll go and do some shopping we'll come pick you up and eventually you start going well you're getting a little bit better at this and a little bit better so we'll go another day and then the parents found the social scene at the rink because there was always a bar um a pub connected to the rink and so the parents used to like bring the kids down and go in the bar and have a pint at least that was my dad's um weekly thing yeah i mean they they'd go for a pint and you'd be working away upstairs skating away doing the work and then um

come about nine o'clock or ten o'clock you know they'd had their fill of drink and we'd head home when i told my wife that you guys had been in touch she was more excited than i've ever seen her about a guest on my podcast usually she is entirely nonplussed by what i do and doesn't really listen to the podcast you You know, not in a nasty way. She's very supportive, but often she's just busy and she can't be bothered. But when I told her that you guys might be on, she suddenly got very animated and wistful

and I realized that it was a very big moment in her life watching you guys. And not just in 1984, but she was also a big fan of a lot of the other bits and pieces that you did around then and the routines. And Mac and Mabel and Barnum, she started talking about. And I never realized that about her. So it was a nice moment. She wrote down a few comments that she sent me when when i said i was going to talk to you okay and i'm going to read some of these to you and then maybe if they spark off reminiscences

or whatever then we can pursue them sure she's called sarah by the way i seldom mention her name but it seems a bit hello sarah hi sarah hi says, I loved Torvill and Dean because, and these are random observations, they were absolutely in time. Obviously, key part of ice dance that they were in time, but they were just right on it. And I mean, that's, I suppose, quite an obvious observation to make. an obvious observation to make but it is one of the more magical things i suppose about watching you perform and certainly even me who was never a sporty person never really interested in watching that kind of thing on tv i saw it i got it in 1984 when i was 14 years old. Yeah, I mean, I really have to stress that sport, no disrespect, bored the absolute tits off me at that age.

I'm sure. But we all watched it. You know, it was one of those moments when everyone was focused on this thing and it was so exciting. Actually, it was a little bit like the 2012 Olympics, which I also watched and got very emotional about. And also seeing my parents watching it and seeing them get so emotional. My dad, who would normally complain about every single thing that we watched on TV, was just rapt, you know, and he was saying,

look at them, look at them. They're absolutely perfectly in time and I could see it and I was like yeah that's cool and so I was interested to know how that developed that level of being in sync did it develop over years or was it did it come quite quickly when you started dancing together I think the nature of the two of us and what we wanted to achieve and who we were went into this amalgamation of what this partnership was. Because we both came from very working class backgrounds. We never thought that we would rise to these heights. But we had an ambition and a determination just to keep doing what we were doing to get better at it skating was always paramount so getting to the ice on time being responsible

and then when you're on the ice the way that you practice that appreciation for each other and you respect the other person all of these traits I think positive traits come together to make a relationship but we were an absolute team you know we were joined at the hip from teenage years to the point when we started being able to do things for ourselves and I think that comes down to when you start to earn some money and when you get transportation that sort of took on a whole new thing that we were responsible for paying for our lessons and our time on the ice and then getting to costume makers designers finding music people that all became your responsibility so it became a business at the same time for us or our life you know it was it was our vocation I think to begin with you would say

two teenagers coming together but eventually that the roots that you create over time and the experiences that you have together bond you together I mean we have now known each other for 52 years we skated together for 47 years. We've got to that level of, I mean, we'll call each other each day and just say, hi, hi, how are you? And we don't need to have a long conversation, but it's just the connection of staying connected.

I think also going back to the timing thing, we had a feeling of musicality within us. So we could feel when we weren't in time you know so we would practice to make sure we were in time with the music but then also what another thing that we were quite obsessed with is that we were matching so the unison that we had was perfect so we weren't happy unless it was and so we would spend hours like making sure the leg line matched or the arms matched or the head matched and all those sort of fine details. We would spend hours, hours doing it, repeating things over and over. Nowadays, as we've gotten older and we do age appropriate skating, but there's still that connection.

Did you also have a sense that the kind of physical synchronicity that you enjoyed extended to your sort of mental connection and your connection as friends? Or was it really just a kind of physical thing when you were on the ice? because we were both disciplined and we both wanted the same thing. We wanted to be as good as we could be. You know, four years before the Olympics that we won, we were lucky enough to go to our first Olympics in Lake Placid in 1980. We still didn't think, well, you know, in four years' time, we'd like to win the Olympics. We were just lucky that if we never did anything ever again, we had gone to the Olympics to represent our country. And that was in 1980. And we didn't know what was going to happen the next year.

The next year was a big breakthrough for us. In 1980, we became fifth. But in 1981, we suddenly won the European and World Championships. Well, what happened is in 1980, we after the olympics that there were going to be at least one or two people drop out and we were fifth so we could maybe get a bronze medal at the european or world championships maybe and so we quit our jobs i was a full-time policeman jane worked at the norwich union and it was a big deal because my dad used to work seven days a week as a minor, didn't have a day off. And then I left school actually at 15 and a half to become a police cadet. So all of my early life I'd worked. I've always woken up every

morning knowing where I was going to go to. And then suddenly in 1980, we decided, okay, we're going to give up our jobs and just concentrate on ice skating. We'd saved enough money to get us through what we thought was six months, maybe to the British Championships. And so we were going to take that risk. And one of the things that we'd heard from other skaters

was like, we need to go and sign on because they'll give you money. So we tried that, but we were too honest too honest they said are you looking for a job and we went oh no no no we just want to train we've been told to come and sign on yeah so they said oh no you're not going to get any money for us not how it works out you go on your bike yeah so uh we just were working off our funds and then was it just before the european championships we got word from our city council i think it was um just before christmas of that year yeah yeah that 1980 we didn't send an olympic team to the summer olympics in moscow

and so the city of nottingham had put aside some money for athletes that they then couldn't spend it on anything. And we'd approached the city council as well as numerous other commercial entities for some kind of sponsorship. The problem is, at that time, skating was a truly amateur sport and you couldn't receive any money for advertising in any way. People could donate you money, but you couldn't get anything money for advertising in any way people could donate you money but you couldn't get anything back from it but what happened the city council came through and said we're prepared to sponsor you and they didn't want anything from it because they had this chunk of change that was going to go to the olympics and it was like 14 000 pounds a year for four years. And for us, that just opened up everything that we felt that we could train like our competitors,

like all the Russians or the Eastern Bloc countries were because they were either employed in the Navy or the Army or the Air Force, but really they were professional athletes. We got the sponsorship and then come the European Championships in January of 1981, we won. It wasn't a third place.

We suddenly found ourselves on top. And our goal was to get to 1984 to maybe achieve that Olympic status. But it had happened four years earlier. And so we were thrilled and excited, but you're now the king of the castle. Got to stay there. And the only way to go is down, you yeah did you feel that pressure though i think we took on that mantle and that we then tried to recreate ourselves each year a lot of skaters prior to that you knew what they

were going to look like from one year to the next but we then started coming out with different themes and different ideas and and for us that was the the exciting part of it is what are we going to do for the next season it was challenging but at the same time when you're on top of the pile people look up to you yeah and so as they were looking up we were always trying to push the boundaries of where the sport was at. And so I think we became leaders for everybody else. So we always tried to be original and different. And I think that was part of our makeup, made us unique.

We didn't keep repeating the same thing. It wasn't like, oh, this is their style. Nobody could tell what style we were going to do. And then certainly in 1984, you know, that became a little bit controversial. But at the end of the day, we believed in what we were doing. Yeah, so much so that we stuck with it. And you know, it was a winning formula. Here's another couple of comments from my wife. Here's a short one. She says, they never made any mistakes, which meant it was relaxing to watch.

My wife's got a low threshold for anything stressful, which is why she doesn't come and see me doing live shows. She says their costumes were not completely awful, like all the blingy Russian ones. There was just something more creative and tasteful about them. Bolero, obviously, she says. But Mac and Mabel was good. And Barnum also brilliant that each piece had a story and then she breaks off and just writes in caps i love them another comment from my wife they looked so nice and unpretentious i think you should have sarah come on i should do yeah but she's in the garden at the moment she's been planting vegetables for the first time

and we've been eating her courgettes and potatoes and spinach amazing sounds like the good life there it's exactly like the good life she's a kind of combination of felicity kendall and uh who was felicity kendall the posh one no penelope keith was margo margo yeah margo was penelope keith wasn't she and felicity kendall was that's right was the sort of more approachable cozy one yeah anyway my wife is like a combination of both anyway she says of you both they looked so nice and unpretentious not drama queenie or emaciated and sad like some ice dancers from countries that were notorious for putting a lot of pressure on their athletes. Now that's not the exact wording of her comment, but I had to change it because I'm frightened of reprisals from Vladimir Putin.

Did you make an effort to come across as nice and unpretentious or is that the way you were? Or were there drama queen scenes behind the scenes as it were no i mean we were as chris said we were just so dedicated and into what we were doing and in actual fact we were both at that time we were very very shy weren't we yeah just shy people and i think when we were on the ice that shyness disappeared because we were doing something that we knew we were in control of and we were living that part, whatever story we were telling. And on the ice, we had lots of confidence. But off the ice, we were very shy people. I think we were passionate on the ice and obviously we would have fraught times that were difficult, but I think we actually never left the ice with a bad tone or an argument or anything.

We would have discussions that might get a little bit heated or raised. But at the end of the day... That's a knowing laugh from Jane there. Yeah, but Jane would always say to me, you know, whilst we're messing about or we're not getting something done those people behind us are getting on with it and so like someone's while we're arguing someone else is practicing so stop arguing yeah do what i tell you that was kind of a mantra i always say if you look you can see jane's arm up my back working my mouth because back in the 80s one of the big sports stars was john mackinrow of course yeah and his performance was really dominated by his antics and his tantrums yeah how did you feel as sports people watching someone like him for example i think nowadays people love

characters and obviously they love characters then but that's not in our nature i think nowadays people love characters and obviously they love characters then but that's not in our nature i think if we try to do something like that that you can see through falsehoods yeah you can see when people are being honest and i think you can see through people that are putting it on for the cameras for the show for the entertainment and for us our skating had to speak for us because it was being judged by those judges. And the thing about skating is you're always being judged on or off the ice. And so we were mentored by our coach, Betty Calloway,

that was sort of our Miss Jean Brody. And she gave us the decorum and the etiquette and things that we'd never heard of coming from Nottingham. And so when you're at a competition and you've got all the judges, you know, it's very much like Strictly Ballroom, was it called? Yeah. Where the judges are sort of, you know, puffed up and wear the blazers and the cravats. And we come from that sort of era. And they were the people that were going to judge you.

Yeah. Well, you never like to come on the ice you always had to skate skate skate you stop you took a bow and then you had to go straight into your starting position so music came on and you finished and even though you thought wow i'm really pleased with how i've just skated again you have to be very modest you get up you hold hands that's in our time. There was no fist pumps. No, you don't go, yay! And there's no hugging each other.

And you're just like, hold hands again, take a bow and skate off. And that was it. And that was sort of our growing up. That was how we were groomed. Right. Anything more than that was considered a bit show-offy, perhaps. Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Definitely. Yeah, and we'd look at people that maybe were like that, and we thought, oh, they're a bit show-offy, aren. Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we'd look at people that maybe were like that. And we thought, oh, they're a bit show-offy, aren't they? Yeah. Right. So, I mean, our characters were literally, when we were performing, we were those people. It was Mac and Mabel. It was Barnum and Bailey.

It was the Romeo, Juliet in Bolero. And then we were Chris and Jane when the music stopped, when we left the ice. Yeah. I watched a couple of documentaries about you guys and the first one I saw was called The Perfect Day and that was about the Olympics in 1984 and the Bolero routine. Then more recently I saw one called Torvill and Dean The Return and that was a BBC documentary as well from 1994. That's an older one and that was about you

competing in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and that reminded me of what documentaries were like more in the 90s you know they always said it's the fly on the wall right we're just trying to catch it capture everything so don't think about us which of course is nonsense because you know once there's a camera and microphones in the room yeah i mean the mic's not working say it again can we just do that bit again so it's not always as it seems and certainly with the cameras the size they were then as opposed to how they are now yeah exactly it wasn't like there was a crew with an iphone going around after you but we were prodded a little bit on that. It was stressful, I have to say.

We had taken a 10-year hiatus from competing. Not too many Olympians take 10 years off and then come back again. Well, we were skating. We're skating as professionals. But we had to come back into that competing world again, didn't we? Yeah. You were able to do so because the judges changed the rules about eligibility for the Olympics. Yes correct so once you turn professional and earned some money in 1984 you were off and you left the amateur scene so 10 years later a lot of the top skaters had left and so there's a a bit of a void of of talent. It was a new challenge, really, wasn't it?

We've always liked challenges. And this was another challenge to come back into the amateur world. Whereas we'd created our own world for the last 10 years. And we were the bosses of our own world, you might say. But then you were going back into a world whereby the bosses were the amateur figures that we'd left behind 10 years ago and so we're back into that scene again it it wasn't an easy fit to go back was it it was a lot of tension not tension between you and chris or or was it no no i mean we we had stressful times as you saw in the documentary but yeah that was again as chris said before

i think when um eddie mertzoff was making the documentary and he was wanted to be fly on the wall what he was seeing day to day was quite boring because it was us getting to the ice ring practicing repeating same stuff over and over again and you know he kind of alluded to the fact that you know there's no drama there's no drama you know we need some more drama so i think chris subconsciously created the drama for him one day and that was that was the only bit everyone remembers which is that bit the f-bomb came out. You know that. Yeah. I remember a bit, there was a bit of you guys practicing and I thought, oh, he's being, he's quite curt. You said something like, you're not doing it properly. You're doing it like you just got off a plane.

Jane sort of said, OK, I'll do it again. I just used to ignore him. Yeah. And I didn't used to comment back, which made him more and more cross. Well, I was impressed by that because it it reminded me of my relationship i did a tv show for many years with my best friend joe cornish and we had been friends since we were 13 or something and then 10 years or 15 years thereafter we suddenly start working together and making a tv show which was really

based on our friendship and the kind of things that made us laugh but it immediately became stressful and the pressure of combining work with that friendship and all these competitive aspects to our personality was really difficult and stressful. And I've talked about it before a lot on this podcast. But one of the things we were never really able to do, I think this is probably fair to Joe, was just come out with straightforward criticism in that way. Like if Joe had spoken to me the way that Chris spoke to you in that documentary, which was not really disrespectful at all.

Like you didn't say it in a horrible way, but just like you're not doing it properly. Do it like this. Come on. You're not trying kind of thing. I wouldn't have dealt with it at all. Well, I would have just gone. Screw you. I'm not into this.

Don't tell me what to do. Yeah. You know, I think successful partnerships, you kind of work out. OK, what am I comfortable with? Am I all right being talked to like that and do i understand that it's coming from a good place and yeah absolutely you have to know the limits you know the boundaries you both know them or if jane thinks that i'm getting to a certain stage she knows the reason for it um and i know the reason for it it's sometimes it's just a vent yeah it's just

something that has to get out to move on so jane you never i'm putting words into your mouth now did you ever have a moment which i had many of when i just thought i'm gonna call him up and i'm gonna say you can't talk to me like that anymore and we need to re-establish a few rules for this relationship because i'm feeling like the junior partner and i don't appreciate it um no not really um i mean that particular episode like after i stormed off and chris ran after me and so on within 10 minutes we were both back on the ice training but they didn't show that bit and they didn't say oh they they're all right now they've made up and they're back training and had a good session by the end of the day what i usually do if chris is getting a bit heated i just ignore him and it makes him worse and then he knows he's not gonna win and now and now he

doesn't even bother getting angry and cross we just roll our eyes at each other now it's too much or jane will just go no and then i'll go all right okay you know you know when you've done all of the the business of going through the ups and downs and the backwards and forwards you know what the no means and what the yes means now there aren't degrees of it you'll say you don't want to do that do you jane and i go no and i know she's not going to that's a nice place to get to i think it's you know it's only time and the shared experiences that you have that you get to that level yes exactly which makes me think again of that being perfectly in sync thing. I guess the only time most of us get to experience a comparable sense of feeling sort of at one with another human being in that way is when you're in a romantic relationship. bolero for me and my wife of course um but i suppose that because most people's experience of of that feeling of being in sync is in the context of a romantic relationship people assumed

that that was the case with you off the ice with you too and it seemed as if they couldn't get their heads around the possibility that this closeness might just be a professional thing you know people love sexy tension and that became one of the aspects of your public persona i suppose people asking you about that constantly did anyone sort of advise you to maintain that to keep people guessing or you know was there ever a conversation about it no one of the things that Chris did quite early on was at the Olympics because it was Valentine's Day and we'd won and so on and the next day all the press were following us around everywhere and at one point we sort of were surrounded and they assumed that we were a couple and we'd never spoken to them about that because we found it all a bit too personal about whether we were or we weren't but then one of them said oh are

you two going to get married then now and Chris said in the that moment he said not yet so then they're all like oh was it difficult though for your actual romantic partners at the time to deal with the level of speculation about your relationship with each other? We didn't have any. We didn't have any romantic partners at the time, as we call them. We were just dedicated to what we were doing. And I think it would have been difficult to have a relationship outside of the training regime that we had and the hours that we had to put into everything so those relationships other relationships didn't come until later when we turned professional because you know in our minds this was the most important thing in our lives

I think we decided that we only had this opportunity now in in our lifetime to achieve the Olympic medal and so you're not going to let anything else distract you or put you off that we were pretty obsessive in what we wanted to the exclusion of so many things i suppose yeah i was thinking most people if they are ambitious at all, are sort of moving through their lives towards some abstract idea of success, whatever success means to them, personal or professional. You know, one day all my efforts and talents are going to culminate in something great and then I'll be able to relax and I'll get a pat on the back and I'll be sorted. But you guys made your mark bigger and better than most of us ever will

when you were still relatively young, aged 27, 28 in 1984? A bit younger than that. 25. 25. Right. And you'd already had success before then. You'd already won in 1981. What did that feel like thereafter?

Did you feel a bit like oh what do we do now what is how do we think about what we want to achieve yeah um for us um i think i speak for jane why i know i do but it was all about getting to the olympics and doing that performance and we couldn't discuss future we couldn't discuss opportunities because it would render us ineligible that we'd lose our amateur status so we could make no plans so our plan was to get to the olympics and then obviously when we got there we won in actual fact there was another six weeks for the world championships and we wanted to carry on and get three titles the europeans olympics and worlds which we did so then after the world championships

there was not a plan okay what do we do now you couldn't sign any contracts or have an agent or anything so but what happened um an australian promoter turned up on our doorstep, came to Nottingham and said, Jesus, mate, we've booked the bloody Russians and you won. Will you come down and skate with them? They thought the Russians were going to win the Olympics. So they booked the whole Russian team to go down to Australia, tour around for two weeks as Olympic champions. So the people that we'd been competing against for the last,

however long our skating career was, we were going to join them on their tour. The Russian team. With exhibitions around Australia. Yeah. You know, that was the beginning of the rest of our career. But anyway, that two weeks turned into three months. Yeah. Staying down there.

But we got paid. But that was a novel as well. That was our first wage. Because we had this opportunity, ideally we wanted to create our own show. But someone said, well, you haven't got any money. So we said, no, we haven't, because we'd only had our sponsorship from the city council, which had run out by then. And someone said, I think you're better off going down there, earning a bit of money,

and then thinking about putting your own show together then after that three months the promoters wanted to carry on doing things and so then we did get to put together our own tours and shows which then went on for the next 10 years and so when you talk about ambition like you say we we made our mark early but I think more than anything, this is a career that normally has a short shelf life. And yet we've been able to convert that and still be doing it, being involved with it. Dancing on Ice came along, which gave us a whole new lease of life from our partnership, skating, and also working in TV. And so it's never been a plan. It's just evolved from one thing to the next thing.

And here we are. And it's more of a reflective looking back of saying, wow, look what we were able to do. I mean, the opening of the show, the Dancing on Ice jane was a bit i know i think i said to you isn't it amazing that we're still here still doing this today and you got a bit teary about it that we were we were still yeah because we're very old people almost ready we're ready for nearly nearly ready for a bus pass in your early 60s um i know everything seems to have unfolded so sort of naturally and successfully are there things though that you do regret and that you kick yourselves for i can honestly look back and go there's nothing i would really change i'm also very much like

that's happened so let's move forward let's go there or learn from it i'm not a person that goes i wish this had happened or i wish that i'm very you know well that's happened so that's where we're going um and and that's always been my way of life well it's great because it's so enjoyable seeing you guys together still working together still getting on because it kind of validates all the feelings that people had at the time watching you being so together and so in sync and it's like oh it was real it was real it's great i was saying that the other documentary the perfect day documentary i'll put a link in the description of the podcast it culminates with the bolero routine when they started showing it and you sort of sink down to the ice and you're facing each other i just started crying i just was completely overwhelmed

with emotion i mean i'm i'm at that point in my life where i'm getting emotional about all sorts of things anyway it doesn't take that much to make me well up. I think when you think back in the past, you almost feel like what your youth, that innocence, that period of time that you would have been watching it, that maybe those emotions come back. I think I listened to you the other day with Joe talking about your mother. Yes, that's right. And that you can't look at pictures. Yeah, yeah. And I find that with my kids, because they've grown up now,

and when you look back, it's sort of that innocence that has changed. As a kid, I remember when the Beatles were splitting up, I thought, that can't happen. How can the Beatles have always been around as long as I can remember? And I know it's only a short career in when you look at things. But as a kid, it was most of my life. And there are those moments that you go, yeah, it's it's a punctuation point in your memory. Yes. Do you relate to that, Jane? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I still look at pictures of my kids and I say to them, oh, look at this. It's so cute. And they go, uh-huh. And they're not that interested. Yeah, but there is definitely, I know what Chris is saying, there's definitely sometimes when it becomes almost unbearably poignant. And like during the lockdown, we had a few family movie shows. And I thought, oh, these will be fun, you know, and I just dug out some videos from like 10 years ago or whatever.

And they were really funny and the children liked it and we were laughing and stuff. But afterwards, my wife was like, that was pretty hardcore. Hard work. Yeah. Because it's just so just the passing of time, as you say, the feeling like, oh, well, that's gone. Yeah. But there's still I mean, gosh, oh, wow, that's gone. But there's still, I mean, gosh, they're only, my daughter's only 11.

I mean, there's still much to be enjoyed. Oh, yeah. And did you, did either of you ever have a moment with your children where you said, okay, it's Bolero time. Watch this. My kids know what I do, but it's never a topic of conversation. Doesnhuh doesn't come up okay yes yeah sure how about you jane my daughter's 14 and my son's 18 and so they've grown up around it my son was only two when dancing on ice started over the years they've both been to a lot of shows a lot of the tour when they were little they didn't want to sit in the

crowd and watch it they just wanted to be in the dressing room and and mess around and stuff but now they they do like watching and they have an opinion on who was good and who wasn't and certainly with Dancing on Ice they have their favorite celebrity and the other night I was watching tv with my daughter she was having a sleepover with me, actually. We watched a bit of news and then Piers Morgan's life stories came on and they repeated the one about Chris and I. She said, oh, mummy, this is your one. I was like, oh, yeah.

So we started to watch it and she's like, mum, I can't believe that you're sitting there and watching yourself on the telly. And I said, I said, well, you are. I said, and watching yourself on the telly and I said I said well you are I said it's on isn't it I said do you want to watch anymore and she went no I said well you know most of it anyway so but I bet you sometimes though they will hear stories about some of the things you did and some of the people you met and they will go wow did you really meet that person oh yeah and did you ever get to meet any of your heroes either sporting or otherwise jack nicholson yeah jack nicholson

we met he came to one of our shows didn't he and um he was great he came into the dressing room we were all in there and and she said did you like the show and he said i love anything that makes me cry hey yeah what do you say about that hey i love anything that makes me cry hey yeah what do you say about that i love anything that makes me cry wow that's a good compliment from jack he would have yeah my dad would have been in the same boat he brought his daughter who obviously was a skater little skater yeah we've met lots of lovely people we've been lucky enough to go to the palace a few times and meet the queen who's She's one of my favorites. Why? Because she's just personable?

I think when you talk about relationships, hers and Philip's is up there, isn't it? Gosh, that's been quite a relationship. That's got to be a complicated and mysterious one, yes, that one day presumably we'll find out a lot more about. I don't mind it being a mystery. No, it's nice to keep things mysterious. I think so. Keep them guessing.

That's the fundamental rule of sexy tension. Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. I visit your website I see success yes success the way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes it looks very professional I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop and I'd like to access your members area And spend in your shop

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So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Yo, man, let's get out of here. Hey, welcome back, podcats. Well, that was Jane Torville and Christopher Dean talking to me there, and I'm very grateful indeed to them for making the time.

It was a great pleasure to meet them and chat with them. Rosie, come here. Rosie. Come on. Come on, darling. Come on. Come on. That's one of them rolling monsters, Rosie. We just avoided it.

Don't see many of them out these paths, do you? What was I saying? Oh, yes, just that it was a great pleasure to talk to Torvill and Dean. Posted a few links in the description of the podcast to the Bolero routine, of course, from 1984. That documentary, Torvill and Dean, The Return, from 1994. There's the Perfect Day documentary from 2014, talking in detail about that day in Sarajevo there's the Piers Morgan life stories interview

from 2013 all there in the description of the podcast also there you will find a link to the charity organization Marie Curie who provide care and support for people dealing with terminal illness, either directly or indirectly. A wonderful organisation that I'd be very grateful if you could lend your support to, if you're able. March would normally be the month they do their great daffodil appeal, now in its 35th year. appeal now in its 35th year but because of lockdown restrictions this year that's not going to be possible in the same way so they're looking at a loss of millions of pounds of support from people click that link and go to the Marie Curie page I'm not very good at this fundraising stuff because I just sound insincere, don't I?

I spend so much of my time being silly. That sometimes it's hard to make the tonal shift. Hey, don't put yourself down, Buckles. You've got a very good, serious subject voice. Thanks very much. Yeah. Lastly, and I'm quoting now from a message sent to me by a friend of mine who does a lot of work for marie curie lastly wearing your daffodil this year she

says will carry even more significance on tuesday the 23rd of march marie curie is leading the national day of reflection which includes a minute silence at 12 noon to remember all those who have died during the pandemic, whether from COVID or not, and to show support for the millions of people who have been bereaved. The daffodil will be a symbol of remembrance and hope through grief on the day, marking a year since the UK first went into a nationwide lockdown. A year. Shit. Just search Day of Reflection online for more details. I've put a link in the description. And whether you are going to be getting involved somehow in the Day of Reflection or not, as I say, if you're able to make a donation to the Marie Curie organization,

that would be wonderful. Rosie is looking at me. How are you feeling? Looking forward to another comfortable evening in the Royal Suite. A comfortable evening in the Royal Suite. Okay, it's getting dark now and cold. So I'm going to head home for a some tea. Thank you very much indeed to the Adam Buxton podcast team this week. Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support. Thanks to Annika Meissen for additional editing on this episode.

Thanks to Helen Green for her podcast artwork. Thanks to all at ACAST. And thanks most of all to you for downloading the podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. Back very soon. Planning to post another episode this weekend. Take care, listeners. And, you know, if it's any help whatsoever,

please bear in mind, I love you. Bye! Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when me bums up. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when me bums up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when me bums up. Bye. Thank you. Bye.