Walking With Dinosaurs: The New York reports

So we've been behind the scenes, met the stars and discovered how they actually work but is Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular any good? SIMON WILSON thinks so...

IS that Keira Knightly? Those sunken cheeks look awfully familiar. With all the subtlety of a T Rex with a hangover the 12-strong table of UK journalists turn to stare at the passing waif.

Yep, that's her.

We're in an upmarket (we're not paying) eaterie in midtown Manhattan. It's so swanky that the toilets have an attendant to turn on the taps for the, one assumes, physically challenged clientele.

Not one of us can summon the effort to leave our plates of superior nosh to try for that exclusive for our editors. For starters she's sealed away in a private room. Her party includes some handy looking dudes in pork pie hats. And, to be honest, none of us are particularly enamoured by her talents on screen.

Besides, we're talking dinosaurs. That morning we'd seen Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular, after which we were led backstage to meet the "cast" and crew behind this £10 million show that has been seen by more than two million people so far.

Every single one of us loved it.

Yes, the pampering helped. A free weekend in New York? A free show? Oh, go on, then. And the hotel was opposite Madison Square Garden where Madonna was booked in for the week. The tattooed fellas lugging their suitcases around the hotel lobby turned out to be her roadies (no, Madge wasn't in residence).

In the morning we'd sidled in to two stretch limousines to be driven over the Hudson River to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey, home to the New York Giants and New York Jets' shared stadium as well as the Izod Center, where Madonna opened her US tour just last month.

Next week it'll host AC/DC but we were there to see some very different dinosaurs.

We'd arrived early so had time to kill watching dozens of drivers pull up to ask the car park attendant: "Hey, is this where the dinosaurs are?" Which was oddly amusing.

In the foyer, the merchandise stalls were setting up; dinosaur slippers, $30; WWD bag, $20; cuddly dinosaur, $25, plastic dinosaur, $20... there's even a dinosaur "tail" you can wear if you want to look completely ridiculous.

The dollars being handed over suggest this show is their biggest comeback since Jurassic Park. Tickets sales alone have generated £50m.

There's a distant boom. An indication to those taking their seats that the dinosaurs are on their way.

It's a nice touch.

But nothing prepares you for the show itself.

The arena floor is empty but for two large rocks. It's worryingly bland. But the stars of the show are all the spectacle you need.

Annoyingly there's a human being – just the one – involved, the paleontologist Huxley who narrates their 200-million-year story, condensed for us into 90 minutes.

On a large screen we see computer-generated (obviously) footage of how the Earth changed, from the splitting continents, the transition from the deserts of the Triassic period to the lush green prairies of the Jurassic. Oceans form, volcanoes erupt and a forest catches fire. This is how some of the species died out, we're told. Of course, 65 million years ago, it was a meteor that wiped them all out (damn, spoilt the ending).

These changes are further illustrated by trees and plants that rise and fall from around the circumference of the arena floor.

But they're just flourishes. None of it matches the sight of these life-size animatronic dinosaurs that emerge from a curtain at the rear of the arena.

Our first glimpse is the hatching of the eggs which attracts the Utahraptors. As these three seven-foot scavengers draw closer you can see each is essentially a man in a suit. How their heads tilt and eyes blink as they battle over the newly hatched baby dinos isn't so clear.

But they're just the warm-up act.

What follows had our party wide-eyed and laughing like children in a mixture of bafflement and joy.

It isn't just how they move; these huge creations, up to 36 ft tall, walking and running, twisting and turning, fighting and eating. The noises are both comical and teeth-chattering. The way they look, the reptilian skin, the way the muscles roll is as believable as anything you've seen on the BBC series.

Stars of the show are the ferocious T Rex and her mischievous offspring dubbed Baby T.

Will the show scare the kids?

Well, if they were running scared of the static T Rex at the Natural History Museum then most probably.

But as one of the crew told me: "Know your kids. We've had seven-year-old boys clamouring to escape and two-year-old girls who love it."

If you don't think they will enjoy it then get a babysitter booked -- you won't want to miss it.

Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular comes to the Trent FM Arena from Wednesday July 15 to Sunday July 19 2009. Performances at 7pm, with additional shows on Saturday and Sunday at 11am and 3pm. Tickets are £20-£35 on 0844 875 90 00.