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Between Wednesday 17th February and Sunday 21st February, Praguers will have a rare chance to experience a real scorcher of a show, one which has already awed more than two million people in Europe.

Huge prehistoric animals will be let loose to stomp and barge around O2 Arena in their full grown glory. These are by no means just half assed clumsy puppets. On the contrary, they are unbelievably agile and convincingly real; they grind their teeth and when they fight against each other, keep out of the way!

No it’s not Genetic Engineering…Film trickery helped

The illusion was masterly enhanced by various film tricks. Designers evoked well an illusion that the giant lizards are of flesh and blood and weight between six to twenty tons by using a special technology called ‘muscle pouches’. They are made of polystyrene balls coated in polystyrene netting that are placed throughout parts of the body that are meant to be mobile.

A bit of Voodoo helps

In reality this is a grand scale puppet performance. Puppeteers move around small copies of individual dinosaurs called voodoo dolls, they record their movements on computers which manipulates the hydraulics of big dinosaurs with the help of radio waves. Five of the smallest dinosaurs are operated by puppeteers who are sitting in their bellies. The illusion is seamless!

Programme won many TV awards

The hundred-minute-long programme was awarded with Emmy television production award as well as three UK’s BAFTA awards; it will feature ten types of reptiles. Theudience will learn or will be reminded of how the Tyranosaurus rex, Plateosaurus or Brachiosaurus used to look like. In the first part of the programme these creatures march into the arena grinding their formidable teeth, run riot and generally freak out the audience while a palaeontologist describes different parts of their bodies. In the second part we can witness lots of action that will culminate in a female Tyranosaurus’ fight to protect her offspring against ferocious predators.

It is not cheap, but...

Even though the tickets cost between CZK 520 and 800, it is certainly worth it. You can buy them in all Sazka sale outlets or on the website www.sazkaticket.cz.