RICHARD FREEMAN: WALKING WITH DINOSAURS LIVE

Puppets have come along was since the Wooden Tops and Rag, Tag and Bobtail. Walking with Dinosaurs, the spectacular, if not 100% accurate BBC series was recently turned into a spectacular live show employing the most astounding puppetry I have ever seen.

I recently took my girlfriend Lisa and her son Mitchell at the Manchester MEN Arena. 15 life sized dinosaurs were created for the show that cost 10 million pounds and is currently on a worldwide tour.

The smallest are remote controlled puppets, medium sized ones are worn like suits by actors and the larger dinosaurs are vast mechanical contrivances operated via a driver in a chassis and two remote control operators.The effect is startlingly real with muscles bulging and every scale and skin tone clearly visible.

The show lasts over one and a half hours and is broken into three segments. In the Triassic we see a female plateosaurus, a pro- sauropod defending her young from a flesh eating liliensternus, but it is not just the dinosaurs that are on show, contemporary vegetation is also created in a unique way with inflatable plants that differ for each period. Continental shift is suggested by large chunks of the scenery being heaved apart.

In the Jurassic section we are treated to a confrontation between the spectacularly plated and spined stegosaurus and the savage carnosaur allosaurus. aceous beginning with a pack of utahraptors squabbling over their kill. We also see the emergence of flowering plants. A huge marionette of the giant pterosaur ornithocheirus was lowered from the ceiling and a moving background showed its migratory flight. Two horned torosaurus (ceratopsians closely related to the better know triceratops) lock horns and battle it out as the club tailed, tank like ankyloAlso taking to the stage was the shows largest dinosaurs the huge brachiosaurus towering over 40 feet tall.

The best section of the show was the cretsaurus watches. Final the star of the show a 43 foot tyrannosaurus rex emerges to frightened squeal of children. It truly is an awesome creation and looks as if it is about to snatch an audience member from their seat and swallow them whole. This most ferocious of dinosaurs is show not only as the most fearsome predator ever to walk the earth but also as an intelligent animal that cared for its young.

Walking with Dinosaurs Live has now finished is UK run and has moved elsewhere but the show is so good that it is bound to be resurrected at some point. If it returns to the UK then make sure you see it. It’s the closest thing to seeing real dinosaurs (apart from birds and come on seeing a duck isn’t the same as seeing a t.rex is it?) you will get until someone invents time travel.