Show goes on for brave ice queens

ALL the world’s a stage. Grit your teeth and make sure the show goes on. Foremost among those smiling through adversity are Denise Van Outen and Myleene Klass, both contestants in Dancing On Ice. Both have suffered setbacks and shown fortitude, wooing crowds, oozing glamour and banking hard-earned pay cheques. Both had it tough as kids and are grafting single mums.

Denise was the weather girl when I was on The Big Breakfast. She dubbed herself “Denise Van Out-and-about-en” and dazzled so brightly that bosses made her the main presenter opposite Johnny-Vaughan.

She’d worked from childhood to pay her fees at stage school. There were headlines about her ill treatment by Gary Glitter in her panto ingénue days. She shrugged off the revelations with perky insouciance. She starred on Broadway in Tell Me On A Sunday to acclaim. She wed Lee Mead, winner of Any Dream Will Do – the search for a star for the musical Joseph – for which she was a judge.

WHEN the union collapsed she soldiered on co-parenting their daughter Betsy, and when the job offers evaporated she wrote herself a show and starred in it. She’s the voice of The Only Way Is Essex and the natural saucy blonde successor to beloved Dame Barbara Windsor. The agony of a partially dislocated shoulder in rehearsal was never going to deter our Den from giving it large on the ice. As a mixed-race little girl Myleene endured abuse. She sobbed on TV after a bad experience in the band Hear’Say but bounded onto I’m A Celebrity: brave, funny and stunning in a bikini. She’s a classical pianist, scientist, writer and purveyor of children’s clothing ranges. When her marriage to the father of her daughters imploded she worked harder. Now engaged and teaching children music online, Myleene reveals she suffered four miscarriages, one during her live radio show. Riven with grief, she carried on broadcasting. Divide the Dancing On Ice trophy and award Denise and Myleene half each. They are proof that nothing can keep a good woman down.