Arts > Theatre

So You Think You Know About Dinosaurs? With Dr Ben Garrod

Norwich Theatre Royal

by Stuart Evans

25/07/21

So You Think You Know About Dinosaurs? With Dr Ben Garrod

This summer Norwich is awash with Dinosaur action. You may well have visited Dippy in the Cathedral, and if you’ve been in the city you cannot miss the T-rex sculptures roaming our streets. Perfect timing then for Great Yarmouth born Dr Ben Garrod to bring his wonderful Edinburgh fringe 5 star show to NR1. The self proclaimed ‘Dino Don’ was performing his first show in 18 months and held the audience, young and old, captivated from the get go. Incredibly informative and laugh out loud funny (I definitely appreciated the Miley Cyrus joke despite the groan from my daughter!) Dr Garrod manages to put an interactive talk you genuinely did not want to end.

“My favourite was the T-Rex story and the noises it makes” Mason,4 years old.

What I found most impressive about the presentation was how it allows the children to show off their knowledge about the subject, it really is designed to make the kids the stars of the show as much as the Dinosaurs themselves. The weird and wonderful questions that came from the audience were brilliant, some even stumping Dr Garrod to much hilarity.

“ I loved everything about it, it was so much fun and very interesting too” Harry aged 10.

Whilst I naturally cannot disclose the facts the we discovered here it was mind blowing to be informed about how the Dinosaurs lived and how little we really do understand of them. Discoveries are still being made to this very day as we will discover when Dr Garrod’s new tv series appears on the BBC towards the end of the year.

“The show has inspired me to become a scientist and discover new things about Dinosaurs and planet Earth” Neve aged 10.

The final part of the performance was the absolute highlight for me. Ben gave a little speech telling the youngsters that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what colour you are, what school you go too, you can be a scientist , you can achieve whatever goal you set yourself if you believe and want it enough. I couldn’t agree more.