Awesome
Walking with Dinosaurs – The Live Experience had its Melbourne premiere on Friday night at the Vodafone arena, and proved a massive success. When narrator Bruce Spence introduced the first dinosaur, a collective gasp went up that echoed throughout the arena, and by the interval, the audiences’ hearts and minds were clearly won over. A $12 million budget has helped designer Sonny Tilders wrought marvels, with 15 life-size dinosaurs brought to life through a sophisticated combination of puppetry and animatronics, convincingly re-creating everything from the illusion of rippling muscles beneath rugose hides to lashing tails and gleaming eyes. This epic production is entertainment on a mammoth scale, and while the narrative occasionally bordered on annoying, being clearly written with children in mind, the dinosaurs themselves, coupled with a stunning lighting design, were more than enough to carry the show. Unfortunately I had to leave at interval to go supervise a photoshoot for MCV ...