ICE QUEEN!
Denise van Outen explains why it’s her last chance to appear on DancingonI ce
Denise van Outen may have been a graceful swan on Strictly ComeDancing – she made it all the way to the 2012 final and was pipped by Olympian Louis Smith – but Denise has no such high hopes for her appearance in DancingOnIce.
“I’ve genuinely never been on ice before,” says singer and performer Denise (46) with a chortle. “On the first day when we met for the masterclass, I couldn’t even stand up on the ice. I was literally standing there just thinking, Help, someone!Comeandget meme! Which they did.”
We’re W meeting over Zo oom for a chat about the new w series of the skate-aon tho hosted by Holly W illoughby and Phillip Sc chofield. Skating legends Ja ayne Torvill and Ch hristopher Dean appear as s judges in the glitzy, ce eleb-studded spectacle. Th his year’s competition w will be even more thrilling w with a host of household n names joining as c contestants – alongside D Denise is Myleene Klass,
Jason Donovan, Olympic athlete Colin Jackson and comedian Rufus Hound, among others.
Denise “socially bubbled” with her skating partner Matt Evers by having him move into her house for two months. They got along famously in a domestic setting, but Denise admits daily training was very hard.
“I’m covered with bruises,” she laughs. “Because I trained in ballet as a kid, I turn my toes out and that’s the worst thing you can do in skating.
“I keep hitting my toe picks [the ridges at the front of the skate] and going flying. I’ve got one knee like a balloon, I’ve hit it so many times.
“I’m one of the clumsiest people you’ll ever meet – I literally go to sit down and I fall off a chair.”
But there was one important reason Denise decided to appear on the annual competition this year – because of her daughter, Betsy. Betsy’s father is Casualty actor Lee Mead, to whom Denise was married from 2009-13. Now Denise lives in Essex with Betsy and her boyfriend of six years, commodities trader Eddie Boxshall, with whom she’s appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox.
Denise is aware that her daughter is about to hit a difficult age. “Betsy is ten, so she’s at an age where seeing Mommy do this is quite cool,” says Denise of appearing on the series.
“If I leave it another two years, she’s going to be embarrassed by me! Now I can have her thinking I’m
brilliant for just giving it a go.”
Skating is a risky business for sure, and
Denise confesses that at 46 she’s also become much more cautious. Even if she weren’t too tall to do the
“headbanger” stunt on ice – where the man flings the woman around by her ankles – she says she wouldn’t do it anyway.
“As you get older and you’re a mum, you don’t want to get injured – I’ve got to do a school run!” says Denise. “So just I’m a bit more cautious than probably I would have been. I think when I did Strictly in 2012, I was a different person. I was much more daring. But I’m getting there.”
Singer Jason Donovan also joins us over Zoom. He admits he shares Denise’s feeling that trepidation increases the older you are.
“This was a big decision for me,” says Jason (52). “There’s jeopardy. Sometimes accidents happen and the older you get, the more cautious you are of what can go wrong.”
Jason needs to be fit for 2021 after his 2020 tour was rescheduled.
“If something does go wrong [on the ice], I don’t need to be hobbling around on stage, so my family I guess were concerned for that. It’s not just about the showbiz and all that – it’s about making sure
Dad’s OK.”
Jason is thrilled to see his old friend Denise in the line-up; they first worked together in 1991 when Denise was a chaperone on JosephAnd TheAmazingTechnicolor Dreamcoat and Jason was the star. “So we go back a long, long way,” chuckles Jason. “And more recently [2019] she played my daughter’s mother in Neighbours.”
It’s true – Jason’s daughter Jemma (20), one of three children he shares with wife Angela, landed a role as Harlow Robinson in the soap that made his name. Denise was cast as her mother, Prue Wallace.
The high-profile names make 2021 a very
promising year for Dancing OnIce. Denise and Jason both comment on how grateful they are just to be working after the pandemic forced performance venues to close. And it brings a bit of glitz to a dark winter.
“It’s extra special given that the last year we’ve had lockdown,” says Denise. “This is a show going out in January, when it’s going to be all doom and gloom – it goes out at a perfect time on a Sunday evening, it’s family viewing, it’s going to be fun and sparkly.”
DancingOnIce begins on Sunday, January 17 on ITV.