Torvill and Dean
Sir: Your predecessor Alexander Chancellor, in his new guise as TV critic (Television, 31 March) quotes Ludovic Kennedy's remark, 'When you've seen one skater, you've really seen the lot.' I could say the same about cricketers or footballers: we would both of us be wrong. What was so noticeable about the free dancing in this year's world figure-skating championships was just how much diversity and originality there was: the smiling artistry of the Japanese, the feline West German interpretation of Lloyd Webber's Cats, the Chaplinesque comedy of our own Nicholas Slater and Karen Barber. As for the top four couples, we not only had the matchless unison and musical feeling of Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill, but also two strongly contrasting Russian interpretations (folk music from the Soviet champions, and Viennese operetta from their colleagues), and a most thoughtful and effective interpretation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade from the Americans.
As for A. N. Wilson's quote (Diary, 31 March) from his wife ('Christopher Dean is not nearly as good as John Curry'), that is simply not comparing like with like. Curry, as a solo skater, could do complex multi- rotation jumps and spins which are not permitted by the rules for ice dancing. Neither man is 'better' than the other; each is supreme in his own, very individual, way. Dennis L. Bird
37 The Avenue, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex
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