ICE TIMES SHOW 1 - Brighton

Well we did it. First show away and our lovely audience was standing and clapping as we finished the last routine. Brillliant.

Text comments:

"Hey you well done! Really enjoyed the show, it was fab, really interesting and entertaining. Skating was beautiful, it was great. Louise was great too and looked gorgeous (Debbie and I loved the sparkles!) C U soon. God bless you loads!" Linda

"Congratulations on your opening night good luck for the rest of the tour." John and Jill Philpott (John is based in Brighton and skated the same time as I did competitively.

"Hi Nicky. Absolutely fabulous, great show, really fantastic feel good factor. Louise was great and we all loved it. Love to Christiane." Chris and Natasha.

"I really enjoyed your show last night. It was fun, it was personal, it was factual, it was beautiful. Well done.

If anyone has an interest in ice skating, whether it's Dancing on Ice, Holiday on Ice, watching the championships or ice skate themselves (all apply to me!) then this show is for you!" Tara

"I loved the show Nicky well done." A personal message from Anne Bird whose husband was national historian of ice skating in the UK until his death 2 years ago. She came backstage with her daughter Clare to see us.

For me it was a heck of a day. Video and music items were not in place in the right order for my usual storytelling and some were not there at all, I had to remake the story and deliver a two hour show in that context! If you had seen me at 11am you would have seen a stressed out Nicky. But amazing what keeping calm and working through things can do. It all flowed and hiccups brought laughter as I tried to keep up with moving images.... all in all, thank goodness it worked.

So a public and heartfelt thank you to Louise (Walden) who did a superb job and dealt with changes and surprises in a light hearted way that caused meriment as we went along. To Giles, Ben, Jamie who made this possible, thank you.

Finally to my beautiful Christiane. Wow you are Artistic Director, catering manager and the best support a man could have.

Now - show two next week. This is odd, normally I do all the set up work with teams and then just do one show, different head space to be in now.

And thank you to our first audience of 146 people. What a great achievement of Giles and the team in bringing that many people in to a new show on a Wednesday evening.

The crew guys Matt and Lewis said the show looked great, the sets worked and the lighting and the ice. Praise from people that see all the shows and can sometimes be a little jaded. They were talking of bringing their boots in to have a skate!

The theatre is a lovely space and I felt at home there. It is an amazing privilege to be on the stage, and such fun.

Millbrook (our mascot was present) he stood stage left and kept an eye on proceedings.

Love

Nicky