Nancy Kerrigan brought an ice show with a Halloween theme Friday night to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland. But what was really scary was how much a TV taping disrupted the evening of entertainment.

“Halloween on Ice” will air at 8 tonight on ESPN. Friday’s audience paid the price so that the nation could enjoy the show.

The event started 20 minutes late. That meant that many of the children in the audience were drifting off by the time “Halloween on Ice” wrapped 2 1/2 hours later. Also, people were leaving three or four numbers before the show’s conclusion.

Kerrigan, whose NAK Productions co-produced the show, had said earlier that she wanted an event with quick, smooth transitions between numbers, so that it became a continuous whole rather than a series of star showcases. But the need for the team of ESPN announcers (Christopher Bowman, Judy Blumberg, Bob Varsha) to have time to offer commentary between numbers meant a lag of 30 to 90 seconds, with the next skater or skaters waiting, often impatiently, in position on the ice. So in the second act, the skaters were taking their individual bows between numbers, since there was time to kill anyhow.

Then there were the retakes. At the end of each act, skaters came back to do over flubbed jumps or spins, so that the aired version appeared flawless. While retakes were a technical necessity, the audience members were more interested in hitting the concession stands or in leaving after Act 2. So this too became a time-consuming annoyance.

How was the show itself? It was very entertaining, especially if the half-hour of TV interruptions could have been edited out. The audiences Saturday in Lowell, Mass., and Sunday in Providence probably enjoyed “Halloween on Ice” quite a bit.

The rink itself was lined with white picket fences. Large cloth pumpkins, hay bales and a graveyard added to the Halloween atmosphere. (What the turkeys were doing there was anybody’s guess.)

Kerrigan herself definitely got into the spirit of the event. She opened the evening skating as Jack, The Pumpkin King from the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Later, dressed in black, she performed a sultry number to Santana’s “Black Magic Woman.”

Most of the other performers came up with one Halloween-themed number and one from their repertoires. Kurt Browning, fresh off the U.S. Professional Championship, skated his classic “Antares” number in a new costume — a skull-patterned bandanna, a Tragically Hip T-shirt and black jeans. In the second act, he played the Frankenstein monster in a hilarious version of “Monster Mash.”

Philippe Candeloro, coming off not only the same championship as Browning but also his honeymoon, reprised the “D’Artagnan” routine which earned him the bronze medal at the 1998 Olympics. Then he played Freddy Krueger in a “Nightmare on Elm Street” number which had a real thrown-together quality to it.

Another standout was the Canadian pair of Isabella Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, who played zombies to “Voodoo Voodoo” and honored everyone’s favorite ghost in “Casper.”

But the stars weren’t the best part of the evening. It was the lesser-known skaters who offered pleasant surprises. The male pair of Armen Sakian and Akop Manukian provided comic relief as soldiers in “Captain Jack” and as auto racers in “The Race.” They also portrayed Batman and Robin to Kerrigan’s Catwoman in the group number “Batman.”

Gia Guddat, who co-choreographed the event with Kerrigan, performed with skates on her feet and her hands in the bizarre number “Enigma.”

Darlin Baker and Andre Distatni provided sensuality in “Music of the Night” from “Phantom of the Opera” and fun as Baker portrayed the world’s most famous doll to Aqua’s “Barbie.”

Adding texture throughout the evening was the champion precision skating team The Haydenettes from Lexington, Mass.

So “Halloween on Ice” was a treat, because it gave Maine skating fans something that’s rare these days: performances they haven’t seen already on TV. At least until tonight.