Dinosaurs will once again be roaming the earth... or maybe just the stage at the Capitol!
Dinosaurs and children are just the perfect combination, as Dinosaur World Live is discovering on the road The show plays Horsham’s Capitol on Tuesday, June 4 and Wednesday, June 5, promising a “roarsome interactive show for all the family.” Lucy Varney plays palaeontologist Miranda who will be the youngsters’ guide through the dinosaur fun – a chance to discover a prehistoric world of astonishing (and remarkably life-like) dinosaurs (age guidance three and up). Meet a host of impressive creatures, including every child’s favourite flesh-eating giant, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, a Triceratops, Giraffatitan, Microraptor and Segnosaurus… and then enjoy a special post-show meetand-greet at the end of it all. “We follow this character called Miranda who I play who is a palaeontologist/ explorer from a mystery island,” Lucy says. “She invites the audience to step into her dinosaur world. She has brought some of the dinosaurs from the island to England to put on this show, and she is just about trying to hold it all together. They say never work with children or animals, and she is working with both! “Miranda is a bit like a cross between Indiana Jones and Hermione Granger and Mowgli. Her whole life has been spent on this island with all these different dinosaurs, and she is absolutely an expert with the dinosaurs. Her whole life has been spent in this world, and both her mum and dad are palaeontologists as well. But coming to this show is probably the first time she has ever actually met other people, and she is just trying to keep it all together. She is a great character to play, a really quirky character. “We started rehearsing in February and we have been touring since March and the tour goes on until September. We are currently on our 83rd show!” But the fun is huge – fun mixed with education: “The team consists of me and five puppeteers and they are just incredibly talented, incredibly convincing. “Throughout the show, Miranda invites the children to meet one dinosaur at a time. She lets the dinosaur explore the stage and meet the audience members. I will pick a child from the audience to come up and feed the dinosaur or pat the dinosaur, and while that is happening, I will give the audience a few facts about the dinosaur, whether they are a herbivore or a carnivore and so on. And there are also games that we play. We have got a few tricks to show the audience. Basically Miranda is trying to invite the children to learn about the dinosaurs and also to meet them. “But the lovely thing is that the children that come along know so much about dinosaurs already. It just blows me away every time. We do a meet and greet at the end of the show and then they can meet a couple of dinosaurs in the foyer, and the children always come up with such great facts about dinosaurs, facts that not even I know. They absolutely engage and believe in it. It is amazing. It is all such great fun! They completely believe in what they are seeing, and they just completely respond to what we are doing. They absolutely love it.”