Dancing on Ice - Same Sex Couple

Will be interesting to see how it goes with lifts as they are fairly evenly sized guys. I'd assume that H would skate as the female role.

I want to be clear. I do not like this sort of thing and it should not be shown as family viewing at peak time. If the good lord intended man to skate on ice he would have given him flippers instead of feet.

The comment about one person skating the male role and the other the female role was taking it from the traditional standpoint and might apply more to Strictly where the gender roles in dance are more defined like the man leading or the woman adopting certain roles in other dances. Also the male or female pro will have always learnt or choreographed their role from their standpoint so to switch suddenly would not be easy.

I fully agree with Lynette's comments about doing contemporary choreography to take account of both performers size and in DOI a lot of the set moves are individual so won't be an issue here.

With all this talk about Strictly having same Sex couples, why not have a test run in the Xmas or Children in Need specials to see what the feedback would be and take it from there.

Also why should one or both of the same sex couples particularly need to be LGBT, you could have some wonderfully emotive and sensual dancing or skating between straight people.

Also DOI doing this first is perhaps appropriate as a large number of gay sportsmen have come from the skating field. 

On an amusing note I was looking up about gay sports people to confirm that a fair number have come from the skating field before mentioning the above comment and Wikipedia lists the great Johnny Mathis in this section as he was a star athlete in his college days although we all know him best for his singing career.

I don't particularly like the female role referred to as the follower even if the man does lead.

With the pros dancing as their relevant gender, I would think this would be logical as if they had to suddenly start dancing as the other partner then that could confuse them. It needs the stronger partner to know exactly what they are doing.

It reminded me of the classic joke in Steptoe and Son where Albert taught Harold a ballroom dance but he taught him the female role and Harold and his lady partner ended up at opposite ends of the dance floor.

Can't see it working. The show has always had a problem comparing female celebs who get lifted, and male celebs who tend to move faster. The show also focuses on tricks and lifts. A same sex couple isn't going to be able to perform most lifts, and will either be moving faster or slower than every other pair - depending on which the same sex is. Matt Evers is also a lifts specialist who has specialized in high lifts and moves where he swings his partner. His problem will be that all the top female competitors have been small, light and under 5 foot 2, and even the best of the taller females he's had couldn't do the same lifts.

They are going to end up with an unbalanced competition where female partners have to do difficult lifts , male Celebs will have to master lifting, and two people will be skating around a bit faster doing something very different.

I had a bit of a blub too.
Agree it was a big deal that shouldn't be.
Haters out in force already on the Evening Standard Facebook page.