Ice Age Live! - Wembley set to freeze over Ice Age Live!, which ends a series of UK dates at Wembley Arena this week before embarking on a five-year international tour, is a spectacular, multimedia mash-up of puppetry, ice skating, "uplifting pop-rock songs," circus acts and dance numbers, performed by a cast of 42 and set to a score recorded by a 100-strong orchestra at Abbey Road. Ella Louise Allaire, who co-wrote the story, wanted to "create something unexpected for the audience and introduce more characters." Foxes, white bears and the villainous Shadow, an eagle-like creature who swoops over the audience's heads, will join the main cast of puppets. "I'm perhaps known for my supersize puppetry," explains Michael Curry, the co-director, whose previous credits include Cirque du Soleil and The Lion King. The mammoths are four metres tall and take two people to operate from the inside, but the characters can still do stunts. I have one mammoth who skates brilliantly. When the action moves beyond the bounds of puppetry, "out of body experiences" promise to give Cirque fans a treat. "The performers extract themselves from the costume so they're free and unencumbered," explains Curry, allowing for more complex acrobatics, avant-garde dance work and some kung fu fight scenes. Completing the spectacle are five vast self-driving stage decks (some as tall as eight metres), which twist and coalesce to form mountains, icebergs, woods and caves. Ingenious lighting, LEDs and a video animation wall add the finishing touches to each landscape, while the arena's rafters play host to aerial stunts and flourishes - in one magical moment, the "sky" fills with human stars. While film purists may chunter about yet another screen-to-stage crossover, Hans Staal, the executive producer, is confident that Ice Age fans will be pleased. They'll get to see the characters they love up close and be inside the story with them. That's the real advantage of theatre over movies; you can let your fantasies loose. "Ice Age Live!" is at Wembley Arena from today to Saturday; www.iceagelive.com