Huge and incredibly lifelike dinosaurs, including this T-Rex, took to the stage at the NIA Birmingham.
We headed out to the NIA in Birmingham to catch the “arena spectacular” Walking with Dinosaurs. That’s a huge claim, but then we are dealing with huge animals, and I’d heard really good things.
We were greeted with a Palaeontologist who acted at the narrator for the show, introducing the individual dinosaurs through easy-to-digest information or sometimes comical interaction.
Not knowing what to expect, I felt that the show would either be aimed at an audience looking to learn more about the creatures, or be a bit light-hearted and rather dumbed down for the kids. In reality, I feel it kind of sat between the two. This was also reflected in the audience, which was expectedly be a child-heavy mix of all ages, but surprisingly included its fair share of adults without kids in tow.
A combination of animatronics, puppetry and special effects brings the dinosaurs to life.
The visuals are impressive, the Palaeontologist played an important roll not only in keeping us informed, but as he was ‘walking with dinosaurs’, he really helped give the creatures a sense of scale. That may seem a strange thing to say given they’re right in front of you and pretty close, but the added narrative does really work.
The dinosaurs are quite real in their movements (based on our interpretation through movie screens of course), and the whole set execution is a superb piece of theatre. As the show turns on the education switch and lightly touches on prehistoric continents and cretaceous jurassic and triassic period changes for the non-historian or scientists among us; the lighting, sound and set itself evolves in front of your eyes.
The antics of this mother and baby T-Rex kept audiences on the edge of their seats.
For instance, we learn about the mid-cretaceous period where the introduction of insects cause flowers to evolve and bloom giving us a more colourful world. These are accentuated by confetti canons that effectively give us a visual of fluttering butterflies, or there’s the rumbling bass that shakes the seats and erratic lighting creating movement in the tectonic plates, or the similar effect in strobes creating a lighting storm; it really is engaging in that respect.
I’d imagine, as a child, the whole thing would be pretty mind-blowing. It’s hard not to be impressed as an adult, just by its visual execution alone, along with questioning how the dinosaurs operate in what is sometimes a tight crowded space (given their size). In fact during the intermission, the children of the audience, who remained in the arena, stomped around roaring as if it had really captured their imagination.
Walking With Dinosaurs Live seems to be a firm favourite with both children and adults alike.
I do think certain elements could have been stepped up a little further, for example the dinosaurs who come to the edge of the floor space and try to engage directly with the audience never really reach over into it the actual audience. I was kind of hoping we’d have some creatures flying overhead too but maybe that has more to do with the NIA’s seating plan and arena space. The show itself relies on a few action sequences and face-offs between dinosaurs, but of course they can do little in terms of displaying an actual fight given the younger audience and the animatronics involved.
It’s at these times it feels a bit slow and relies too heavily on them roaming the floor space, not really doing much. I fear it loses the audience’s interest sometimes. It could possibly benefit from some more in-depth facts for the older gneration to keep these pieces engaging, or just some additional running commentary that was similarly present in other scenes. Having said that, I was excited for it for one main reason and that’s the visuals, and they were incredible. That and the humour in the T-Rex scene… a nice touch.
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Walking with Dinosaurs continues its run at the Birmingham NIA between 10-14 April, 2013. Tickets are available at The Ticket Factory: www.theticketfactory.com or 0844 338 8000. Find out more at www.thenia.co.uk.
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Russ Tierney
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