Walking, flying beasts are impressive and terrifically terrifying

COVERING the full 200 million-year reign of the dinosaurs in just two hours, Walking With Dinosaurs takes you on a breathless journey that sees continents move, oceans emerge and, of course, dinosaurs do battle.

Narrated by Huxley, a safari-suited palaeontologist with the kind of voice that normally announces prize fighters to the ring in Caesar's Palace, the show begins in the Triassic period ("225 million years before computer games," as he put it). Wisely, Huxley kept the gags to a minimum and swiftly introduced the show's first star - the plateosaurus, a hulking but harmless herbivore.

Appearing on the stage to audible gasps from young and old alike, the dinosaur's movements were impressively fluid, circling the arena before making a beeline for the various foliage on display.

Then came the brachiosaurus, the monolithic plant-eater from the Jurassic period. With a never-ending neck that almost scraped the arena ceiling and legs that could have doubled as oak trees, it was with great surprise that we learned that he was a mere adolescent. Mother followed, scaring off the gnashing advances of an allosaurus pronged to attack her young in one of many battles between herbivores and bloodthirsty carnivores.

A 15-minute intermission followed in which popcorn was proffered, the Atlantic was created and 30 million years whizzed passed.

Suddenly, we were in the Cretaceous period and dinosaurs had grown wings. In truth, these were not quite as impressive as their groundling relatives. With a 40-foot wingspan, however, they were better than your modern-day seagull.

The show kept its star performer until the end. The tyrannosaurus rex, the terror of the dinosaur kingdom, lived up to its billing in a wonderfully exciting finale that will have audiences on the edge of their seats. The blood-curdling roar of the creature may be a bit too frightening for the very young (and certainly this gutless critic), although it didn't seem to terrify any of the children here.