dino town hall

Dinosaur World Live

Birmingham Town Hall Birmingham

****

On a sunny Royal afternoon, we entered a mysterious island and got ready to become explorers with Dinosaur World Live at Town Hall Birmingham.

The simple staging, lights and smoke set the scene for an adventure which played out over 50 minutes as our guide Miranda introduced us to range of ‘friendly’ dinosaurs inviting some lucky explorers on stage to greet, groom and walk the dinosaurs.

Miranda, played by Alexandra Harman, had a just pitched right children’s TV presenter style and kept the young audience engaged, deftly managing picking the explorers to join her on stage and keeping the action moving.

The puppetry was fantastic, the dinosaurs themselves believable and the performers skill of movement brought them to life so that my apprentice reviewers, who knew they couldn’t be real, were amazed and both wondered aloud at different points but are they real!?

The show felt very much like an interactive experience the like of which you would experience at a zoo if you’d stopped off to see the seal or penguin show. This gave a real realistic, and familiar, feel to what is of course a fantastical show.

Throughout the show Miranda shared fact after fact about Dinosaurs, using the puppets to bring the facts to life as opposed to ‘dumbing down’ the information. The fun factor meant that all our party, in conversation post show, mentioned at least one new fact learnt during the show.

For the adults in our party the show did feel short, and in some ways light in content, although of course we appreciate the scale and impact of the puppets would be lost by trying to focus on more than one at once or indeed by bringing on more, more, more.

The opportunity for the whole audience to meet a selection of the dinosaurs’ post show however made the show feel incredibly special – it’s not every day you get to stroke a baby T-Rex! This interaction is what makes the show and it is this that my boys have continued to talk about post show and will be telling their friends about on Monday.

Lots of fun for all ages – enough wow for both a six-year old and a nine-year-old, incredibly impressive puppetry and plenty of interaction to keep both children and their adults happy!

Helen Annetts

Assisted by apprentice reviewers Charlie Statham (aged 9) and Joe Statham (aged 6)

19-05-18

Dinosaur World Live has headed off on its UK tour, but dinosaurs will roam the earth again in the Midlands again with a visit to Cheltenham’s Everyman (6-8 July), The Place n the Park, Telford (7-8 August) and Warwick Arts Centre (30 Oct and 1 Nov).

Meanwhile another dinosaur star, Dippy, The Natural History Museum’s famous Diplodocus, is taking a road trip to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from 26 May - 9 September 2018. Admission is free.

Dippy in Brum 

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