Jayne Torvill – Lose It!

Jayne Torvill is, of course, one half of one of the world’s greatest double acts. Right up there with Morecombe and Wise, Laurel and Hardy, Bert and Ernie and the Kray twins. 

If you type "World's greatest double act" into Google images, this is the second picture which comes up. I'm not sure if this is fantastic or an indication of the End of Days.

Like any of them, it feels odd for one to be doing something without the other. I keep expect my spellchecker to autocorrect her surname to “Torvillanddean”.

Apparently she is allowed to branch out and do things on her own occasionally. Although judging by this DVD she is only permitted to do so if she fulfils her quota of references to Ravel’s Bolero and her famous dance with Christopher Dean.

This one.

So we get a section called the workout called the “Bolero Blitz” where Jayne and her trainer, Dan Little, start the routine on their knees do a bunch of workout moves and them fling themselves to the ground at the end in a tired homage to the famous routine.

Well this looks familiar.

Because of course, Jayne Torvill is an Olympic gold winner in the most arty of Olympic events since Olympic medals for Literature were discontinued in 1948.

In 1984, the people worshipped them as gods.

Interesting fact about Torvill and Dean’s Olympic Gold winning routine in 1984: Did you know that the reason that Torvill and Dean started their routine on their knees doing the swaying body stuff on the ice was because the music was slightly over the maximum allowable time allotted? Keeping the bottom of their skates off the ice for the first 18 seconds was a way to circumvent the time limit rules.

Cheeky blighters.

This then went on to inspire so many copycat routines that the Sports Authorities banned kneeling on the ice. Presumably in order to prevent someone deciding to stage a routine based on Jeff Wayne’s War of theWorlds performing the whole thing on their knees until the final four minutes.

Christopher Dean as Julian Clary. Jayne Torvill as the Judderman.

Torvill and Dean are now coaches and creative directors of Dancing On Ice which I have never seen because apparently I never watch anything that might prove useful for these reviews. It’s usually described as “Strictly Come Dancing” with skates. I never watch Strictly Come Dancing either but it’s handy to get essential differences like that straight in my head.

Also, everybody is a bit less famous.

The workout sections include a Warm Up, Ice Body Burner, Bolero Blitz and Crunch and Tone.

I hope Jayne doesn’t do any presenting on Dancing On Ice because if this DVD is anything to go by, she’s really very bad at it. It’s lucky her trainer, Dan Little, seems happy in front of the camera because poor Jayne really doesn’t seem that comfortable to be there. 

It's OK, Jayne. Don't panic.

There’s not much rapport between the two, sadly. They have one quick conversation where Dan tells Jayne that he’s “no Christopher Dean” and that’s about it. Dan carries the whole show. He could have done the whole thing just as effectively on his own. Although if he had, the Ravel’s Bolero references would have seemed a bit odd.

Torvill and Dan

Best Bit

Dan the Trainer does actually explain how to do things properly He demonstrates the correct way to do a squat at the beginning of the warm-up and talks us through different moves as we come to them in a clear and straightforward manner. 

Unfortunately half the time he’s doing this the camera is zooming in to a close up of his face or pointing directly at Jayne’s knees so we don’t get the benefit that we might if we could, you know, actually see what Dan was talking about. But that’s hardly Dan’s fault so I won’t hold that against him.

Useful Dan is useful.

Worst Bit

Like Lorraine Kelly’s ‘walkercise’ the other week, this workout massively over-estimates the amount of space participants at home might have available to them. Jayne even mention the fact that the DVD  is for people to do in their living rooms so it’s not like they think everyone’s planning to do this in the local village hall or something.

Dan and Jayne skip from one side of their exercise studio to the other, they sashay forwards, they pony backwards. “Why don’t we take this a bit further?” says Dan leaping backwards with gay abandon. How about we don’t Dan? I’m having a hard enough time following your instructions as it is without having to adapt them for my limited living space as I go along.

Pictured: Leaping with gay abandon

Difficulty Level

Well, it was certainly fast. There were bits where we were supposed to go: Funky Knee! Arm Thing! Funky Knee! Skate Shuffle! I was only able to manage a couple of funky knees before having to quickly rejoin Dan and Jayne for step touches.  Still that seems to have been their intention. As Jayne says in her introduction “It’s hard work but hopefully you won’t notice because there’s loads  of moves for you to concentrate on.” I feel that Jayne may have confused the concept of “fun” with that of “confusing”.

Probably not as difficult as this, though.

Would I do this Workout again?

I think I might do. The workout itself is pretty good though I suspect that’s more down to Dan than Jayne. The soundtrack’s pretty dire though. You know Torvill and Dean actually released an album of them singing love songs back in 1989? It’s on Spotify and everything. I think if I do Jayne’s “Lose It!” workout again I might turn the volume right down and listen to this instead.