Review: Dinosaur World at The Anvil

dinosaur world

*Gifted Tickets

Jake is a huge dinosaur fan, so when Anvil Arts invited us along to review the new show Dinosaur World we jumped at the chance. The show is suitable from the age of three and runs for 50 minutes with no interval, which works out well. With this being our third theatre show of the year we have started to learn how long Jake can hold his attention for and anything over an hour has him wriggling in his seat. However, this show is completely different from your usual one. The lights remain up through most of it and photos are permitted throughout which is a nice change.

The Dinosaur World show is performed by Miranda who tells her story of how she came to live on an island inhabited by dinosaurs. She grew up around them and learnt all she could from her parents. She is extremely enthusiastic throughout the show and her on-stage energy keeps the children’s attention. She encourages the audience to shout out and join in as well as asking selected members to join her up on stage to help with each dinosaur.

The first dinosaur we meet is Juliet who is a Segnosaurus… nope I’ve never heard of one before either! I didn’t really know what to expect from the dinosaurs themselves but the puppetry far exceeded what I had imagined. The details in the colour, the movements and their sizes have all been taken into consideration and you hardly notice the puppeteers whilst the dinosaurs are in action.

Juliet is playful and puts her nose down to the audience and nudges Miranda a few times for food. Miranda asks for a volunteer here and a lucky little lad was invited up onto the dinosaur world stage to hold a branch up in the air for Juliet to eat from.

As we are about to wave goodbye to Juliet another dinosaur soars across the stage getting the children very excited and screaming. He flies through a couple more times and the kids are just going wild! With Juliet exiting the stage we welcome on the Microraptor, Orlando. As Miranda is teaching the audience about this type of dinosaur and how we have known since the 1800’s that some dinosaurs have feathers, Orlando has a little play around and lands on her back. The voices of the dinosaurs are all also provided by the puppeteers and it is just so clever how they have mastered the sounds. One audience member was invited up to give Orlando a little brush under his chin.

During the show, we are asked to keep an eye on the Giraffatitan egg which is waiting to hatch after being laid a year ago. Whenever it begins to shake the audience need to shout out Miranda’s name to let her know that it may be hatching but each time it stops just as she gets ready for an arrival…

Next up is the baby Triceratops, Beatrice. She comes on wrapped in a blanket and everyone has to be very quiet so not to wake her. She does wake up, it’s an audience full of children what do you expect?! Two children from the audience are then asked up to give her a stroke and a tickle and then we are all asked to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to get her back off to sleep.

The next dinosaur to meet us is Tam who is a baby T-Rex. This was Jake’s favourite and had him very excited. Tam chases a ball like a dog and plays with a squeaky toy. He is a bit naughty on the lead so a little girl from the audience comes up onto the stage to give Miranda a helping hand.

As it seems as though the show is coming to an end Miranda tells us that we can no longer meet Titus, the adult Tyrannosaurus Rex after he was a bit of a handful in Scarborough… It doesn’t take her long to change her mind and suddenly the lights go down, the lighting changes to green on stage and out from the curtains appears the large T-Rex.

Titus does get a bit naughty and begins to chase Miranda and starts to move towards the audience so she encourages us all to roar at him to scare him off.

The egg hasn’t hatched by this point so Miranda gets a dinosaur handler to come out and take it back to the incubator. Suddenly she comes running back on saying the egg is hatching and the baby Giraffatitan appears… as does her Mother.

large dino head coming on the stage

At the end of the show, we are told that 2 of the dinosaurs will be joining us out in the foyer for a meet and greet. Cue very excitable children (and adults) rushing to get out the front and into place. Beatrice and Tam are the 2 who are ‘allowed’ to come and see us all and it was a lovely touch to the end of such a fantastic show.

The Dinosaur World show is currently on tour and was only showing at The Anvil on 20th and 21st May. However, there is still time to book it in other areas and I can highly recommend it for the whole family. We all loved it and Jake’s little face was just a picture throughout.

You can find more information on their website.

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*We received these tickets in exchange for this review. All opinions are honest and my own. For more information please refer to my disclosure page.

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7 thoughts on “Review: Dinosaur World at The Anvil

  1. This looks seriously cool!!! I think The Anvil is about a 45 minute drive from us, so not a million miles away! I’m just showing Mr C this post to drop some serious hints haha!! #RV&HT

  2. This looks an amazing show! My kids would adore it once they’d got over their nerves at seeing dinos 🙂 #RV&HT

    1. Yes, Jake went shy when he went to meet the at the end… he ran out the door! hahaha. I said are you scared? He said no, I said what is it then, are you shy and he said yes. He was glad I got him to go back in and meet them because he kept talking about how he touched the dinosaurs nose for the rest of the day.

  3. This looks brilliant. Cygnet is really into dinosaurs at the moment and is addicted to Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures on CBeebies. I’ve just checked their website and I can’t do any of those dates/venues. Such a shame. Pen x #RV&HT

  4. This looks amazing! Greg would love this! I’ve just looked at tickets but the nearest for me is Sheffield, which is a bit far when Greg doesn’t like car journeys 🙁 maybe there’ll be another one next year and we can go on the train! x

    #RVHT

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