After a three-decade absence from our shores, the iconic ice dancing pair Torvill & Dean are poised to grace Australian shores once more with their eagerly awaited farewell tour, Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance.
The tour promises to celebrate their illustrious career spanning decades (50 years next year!) culminating in a poignant farewell as they bid adieu to the skating stage together.
“It’s been 50 years since we first started skating together,” Christopher Dean says. “We felt like that was a nice number to retire on. We can’t keep doing it forever but whilst we can keep doing it in the way that we can now, we felt that it was the perfect time to be able to say goodbye and end the actual performing side. We’ll always be close friends though! But now is the right time for us.”
Jayne Torvill explains that they wanted to go out with a bit of fanfare, much like the tone of their career. “To just stop skating isn’t enough,” Torvill says. “We wanted to celebrate our careers and share that with an audience. Within the show we want to tell the story of our career and take audiences on the journey we’ve been on,” she says.
Torvill and Dean shot to fame with their record breaking, Gold Medal-winning performance to Bolero at the 1984 Olympics. At the time, they had no idea where that iconic performance would take them, and they’ve been grateful for every second.
“We had practiced our whole lives to get to that point and we had no inkling what would follow that… The Olympics just opens up a whole other aspects of people’s awareness of you.”
One of the first places they toured too after that iconic performance was Australia and they were blown away by the Aussies’ response to them and their craft. “We went to Sydney to just do a couple of shows and we ended up staying and doing three months of shows around Australia.” Dean says.
This time around Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance starts off in the UK and then will touch down in Australia towards the end of the tour. Starting in Brisbane (yay!), the final celebration will then take them to Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
“We’re so excited to come back,” Torvill says. “The last time we toured Australia was quite a few years ago—we were there for the show Dancing on Ice, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was a great experience to be back there.” Dean agrees. “Australia always felt like such a young, fresh, vibrant place for us. We took that vibe on board and it felt like a complete new beginning for us.”
Both Torvill and Dean began their skating careers in Nottingham, their hometown. “We both had different partners for a while but they both left to go to London so we were left twiddling our thumbs, Dean says. “My coach at the time suggested we give it a go… after a week or so she said ‘Do you think it’s going to work?’ and we didn’t want to jinx it! After a month she asked again and we said ‘We don’t know”. That’s continued to this day! Over the 50 years, we really haven’t agreed to continue skating together! We take it day by day.”
And skating enthusiasts the world over are eternally grateful they continued to choose each other on the rink year after year.
When they look back on their career, there’s so much to be proud of, but Torvill and Dean say there are some moments that really stand out. “Obviously Bolero means so much to us,” Dean says. “The Olympics in ’84 have enabled us to do so much beyond that. I’m really proud of us putting together the shows that we’ve done—our first show The World Tour was really unique, treating it almost like a ballet on ice with a collection of talented skaters. No one had really done that before and that was very special for us.”
He continues: “Then we did another tour with a Russian ensemble and that was before the Iron Curtain was lifted so that was adventurous for us! And of course Dancing on Ice… we’re in our 17th series!”
As to what audiences can expect from the upcoming tour, Dean says it’s going to be a retrospective of their lives. “We wanted to tell the story from the beginning, through the periods of competition, through the professionalism and putting our shows together, through to Dancing on Ice. It’s a whole storybook mingled within that, and an eclectic musical evening.”
“We’re so looking forward to getting down there,” Torvill says. Dean chimes in with an enthusiastic “You know the building—Brisbane Entertainment Centre at Boondall—we opened that!”
Torvill and Dean: Our Last Dance 2025 Tour: June 14 and 15, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall.
Get tickets now here.
In her spare time, she likes long walks down the makeup aisle and performing in Brisbane theatre. You can follow her adventures on Instagram and TikTok @thebeautypalate.
