We reviewed Dinosaur World Live during its visit to Buxton Opera House in August 2025. Here is our reviewer’s account of the family show.
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 non-avian 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.
Dinosaur World Live is only an hour long, clearly conscious of its target demographic’s average attention span. A baby dinosaur and its vast mother singing to each other is a surprisingly emotional end. The show doesn’t outstay its welcome and packs in a lot of content. For dinosaur nuts, it’s a must.
2025 performances
The Buxton Opera House run was listed for 21–23 August 2025.
For the current programme, visit Buxton Opera House.
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