Unless you’ve been living in the Cretaceous period recently, you’ve probably noticed there’s dinosaurs in town. Fortunately, the titanic beasts are confined to Buxton Opera House and with the school holidays quickly approaching the finish line, there’s still time to buy tickets and create dinosaur-shaped memories. Dinosaur World Live is aimed at kids but we sent one of our best writers who despite being 52 years old, still loves dinosaurs. The poster outside the Opera House promised a life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex and he looked afraid so we promised him a nice big hug when he got back to the office and a special treat for being a brave boy.
Before the show even started, there was a discernible buzz in the theatre and as you would expect, most of the 902 seats were filled with excitable children, many of whom were proclaiming their love for prehistoric animals with hats, T-shirts, cuddly toys and other gaudy apparel. The seats in the Edwardian opera house are a little snug and kids fit them quite well. I wonder if celebrated architect Frank Matcham foresaw that his beloved theatre would be invaded by noisy monsters (the dinosaurs, not the kids).
Dinosaurs are obviously really scary so I was wondering if we soon in store for a full-blown stampede. Quite wisely, the first life-form on stage was a human called Miranda and in CBeebies style, broke the audience in gently. The first few creatures on stage were reasonably cute and friendly and young volunteers from the audience were invited on to stage to pet them, feed them and take them for a walk around the stage. In English tradition, there’s a bit of “he’s behind you!” panto and some bodily functions too. Farting is as much a guaranteed hit with kids as the dinosaurs. There are a few facts thrown in but this is a show that mostly focusses on the fun. I guess they’ll be going back to school soon enough.
Spoiler alert: The dinosaurs aren’t real. They are puppets. Massive elaborate puppets but puppets nonetheless. There isn’t much attempt to disguise the puppeteers and in the digital age, this may jar a little at first. However, the kids didn’t seem to mind that there are clearly people operating the animals and none of the magic gets lost. In fact, after a while, the puppeteering seems to become part of the charm. This is most likely the closest we’ll ever get to petting real dinosaurs. The science in Jurassic Park as it turned out, was flawed, and we can take comfort in the fact that we won’t actually get eaten.
As the show progresses, the dinosaurs get bigger and as the publicity threatened, the show stopper is a huge T Rex thundering on to the stage, the wood creaking under its colossal weight. This was brown trousers time even for the adults. Cuteness recklessly tossed aside, this far more monstrous and considerably less cuddly dinosaur is eventually repelled by the chanting of the audience. In reality, I’m not sure a hungry apex predator the size of a bus would be put off by hundreds of kids yelling at it. Maybe it would.
Performance Dates and Bookings
Performances for Dinosaur World Live! take place on Friday 22nd August at 11am and 2pm (the show at 2pm is a Relaxed performance and on Saturday 23rd August at 11am and 2pm.
Tickets cost £14.50 – £16.50 and there is still some availability for both days!
For more information and bookings go to: buxtonoperahouse.org.uk/event/dinosaur-world-live-2025
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