Friday, December 28, 2007

A pre-historic afternoon

We took the boys today to see Walking with Dinosaurs at the HP Pavillion. The show was terrific.

Based on the BBC televison special of the same name, it's a series of life-size animatronic/puppet dinosaurs. Here we see the Stegasaurus in the Jurassic era.

The different dinosaur eras were each illustrated by some sort of story - some variation of predator/dinner scenario. The show started with dinosaurs hatching from eggs, the each story was linked and narrated by some bloke claiming to be a paleontologist. Nice to hear the australian accents - the show was developed in Australia I believe.

We all particularly liked the Ornithocheirus: shown soaring over the ocean. Each segment was explained in terms of the geomorphology, and plant development as well as the evolution of the dinosaurs over time.

The grand finale was of course a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They showed a mother T-Rex defending her baby in a big showdown with a couple of herbivores.

I completely recommend the show to anyone with dinosaur-interested children (which I seem the observe includes all small boys and a lot of girls). We sat in the cheapest seats and don't think sitting lower and/or closer would have been any better. The pavillion does have good unobstructed views from the cheaper seats - but we enjoyed the view we had of the overall picture. I also think it would have been more scary closer to the dinosaurs.

It's nice to go to a truly family entertainment as both Nigel and I were as absorbed as the boys.

Of course the boys have been baby T-Rexs all evening.

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