“Elvis has left the building” was a phrase often used at venues to get the audience to go home. When Dr Ben Garrod is around, you’re more likely to hear, “Ben is still in the building – and keen to speak to you.”
For in a remarkable act of kindness, his policy is to ensure every child coming to one of his shows has a chance to chat to him in person.
Ben, who brings, So You Think You Know About Dinosaurs…?, to Eden Court on Saturday, March 31, said: “I won’t leave the theatre until every single kid has had the opportunity to talk to me. That means I can sometimes still be in the theatre two and a half hours after the show has finished.
“They can ask me anything they want. Which dinosaur would win in a fight? What type of bone is this they’ve found? Kids often bring along things they’ve found, sometimes for me to identify but more often than not it’s so they can tell me what it is they’ve found.
“Someone even turned up with half a mammoth rib once which really threw me at first!”
Ben is an unashamed dinosaur aficionado.
His hit stage show aims to take audiences on an exciting pre-historic adventure that’s interactive, educational and highly entertaining.
With the help of TV film footage from BBC’s Planet Dinosaur and photos of his own palaeontological dinosaur digs, he will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about dinosaurs – and more. “The show, in the most simple terms, is halfway between a science lecture and a pantomime,” said Ben who is an English evolutionary biologist, primatologist and broadcaster and presenter of several TV shows including his own award-winning series, Secrets of Bones.
“I wanted to do this tour in order to get kids engaged and inspired in science,” he said.
“We have a thing in the UK where we don’t really take pride in being a geek. Geekiness and nerdiness is seen as a bad thing whereas I want to inspire kids to be geeky and nerdy – using dinosaurs is one of the best ways to do that.
“It’s one of those topics we all know about, but we don’t know as much as we think we do as our knowledge is changing all the time thanks to advances in science and technology.
“For example, 25 years ago we had to cut a bone in half to look inside. Now we can see inside a bone with a CT scan. I fire lasers at bones for my research – that’s something we wouldn’t have dreamed of doing 10 years ago.
“And there’s new discoveries all the time, even in our own country such as the brothers in Wales discovering a new species of T Rex.
“Most people, if asked to describe a T Rex, might think of a roaring dinosaur that’s big, scaly and green with short arms but none of those things are true.
“Piece by piece, I’ll reveal what dinosaurs were like, what they did an didn’t do. The show really brings high-level science to kids but in an easy, accessible and engaging, playful, format,” said Ben who has visited the Cairngorms several times.
His passion for dinosaurs began at an early age.
“When I was about five, I found a tiny little fossilised shell of a squid-like animal called Belenanite, in a rock pool. I had no idea what it was, so came home and looked it up in books.
“I discovered that this little thing I’d found on my local beach was over 200million years old. That blew my mind. Never mind T Rex, I wanted to know more about this little weird squid that swam around Norfolk.”
During the show Ben will talk audiences through the deadliest predators that ever roamed the planet 65million years ago such as Tyrannosaurus Rex, Allosaurus and Spinosaurus. “There won’t be any models on stage, it’s just me with a screen behind me,” said Ben.
“Bit by bit, I’ll reveal the ultimate historic predator. The only thing I’ll reveal just now is that it’s not the one you think it is which has caused lots of arguments and discussion.”
As well as being happy to stay behind and chat post-show, he encourages families to take children out to explore their local habitat.
“Get out and look for bones, shells and fossils. If you live by the sea the coastline might look the same but it changes twice a day. You can go and find different things at different times of the same day. Take a notebook and record what you see or perhaps do a drawing of what you’ve found.
“There’s also lots of bones waiting to be found on the beach and in parks. Every single bone tells a story. From a single bone you can tell how old it is, how it walked, how it swam, what it ate.
“Doing things like this really fires kids’ imaginations but gets their scientific skills going as well, plus youngsters think it’s quite cool to have a bone!”
So You Think You Know About Dinosaurs…? is at the One Touch Theatre, Eden Court at 2.30pm on Saturday, March 31. For tickets contact the box office on 01463 234234.