Beauty and the Beast on Ice, Spa Centre, Leamington, Wednesday to Sunday May 4

Whereas last year's ice spectacular at the Spa (Peter Pan) was full of excitement, action and humour, this production was flat as a pancake. It was no surprise that the woman next to me kept flipping open her mobile phone to check for messages.

Even though the story was read out at the beginning of each scene, I still found it hard to work out what was going on. The dancing, including Olympic star Olga Pershankova as the Beauty, was skilled and graceful but became repetitive and inevitably limited by the small stage.

The pounding taped soundtrack soon became annoying - the only let-up being when the CD got stuck in the second half.

Last year, some wonderful set-piece stunt scenes opened out the action, but this time around only the final scene before the interval had the audience on the edge of their seats and marvelling at the spectacle.

Where were the thrills? Where were the scares? Even the beast, when he appeared, looked more like John McCririck than a hideous fiend, and pranced around the stage with giant steps as if he'd got too much starch in his trousers.

A big family audience deserved a more interesting show with characters who engaged with them rather than performing as if they weren't there.

Sorry, ice stars, you'll have to do better next time. John Howes

Verdict: Very disappointing