“A delightfully weird but educational street theatre performance,” (Time Out)

“You need to see the Iguanodon Restaurant, it’s awesome!”

“Fantastic paleo-history storytelling from the Iguanodon Restaurant.”

Watch the video trailer here:

“That is just too cool!”

“Mary Anning was in the iguanodon play excitingly. It was sooooooooooo funny. It had fossils in it. I went up on the stage carefully.”

Twitter comments at https://twitter.com/iggy1853

About the Show

The Iguanodon Restaurant is a theatre performance for schools and families set in a life-size Victorian iguanodon. Since 2016 we have performed to 20,380 people at festivals, schools, in carparks and shopping centres. Our biggest audience numbered 1191 keen picnickers on a sunny day in Hastings. We perform to whole schools and work with museums to celebrate their geology collections and draw attention to local fossils.

The show lasts for 35 minutes and tells the story of the birth of geology in a fast and furious romp, through 60 years of scientific discovery. As the story unfolds eccentric characters emerge from history: Mary Anning, Sir Richard Owen, Baron George Cuvier and the Godfather of Geology, William Smith. They compete for fame, claiming the biggest, best fossils for themselves! And they grapple with questions that shook society: How come these creatures no longer exist? What does this tell us about our world? Where’s my hat?

Iggy has been stabled throughout 2020-21 and has remained Covid-free. We plan to tour him to museums around Dorset, Somerset and Devon in 2022 -23, funding pending.

photo by Finbarr Webster

“I was so impressed by what I saw that I saw it twice and both times enjoyed it immensely. The theme and presentation was some of the best I have seen to date. To get facts over to the public using such a great storyline was a credit to not only the actors but to whoever created the idea and set it up in the first place. Well done, we need more of this as a great educational aid.”

(Steve Etches, Etches Collection, Kimmeridge)

The Artistic Team:
Sarah Butterworth – Artistic Director, performer
Richie Smith – Writer and Director of Performance
Ed Jobling – Performer (Bill, Anning, Cuvier, Smith, Owen, Darwin)
Mike Bennet – Performer (Hawkins, Buckland, Mantell)
Georgie Rose Shire – Artist
Mike Pattison – Engineer
Jay Kerry – Maker, technician
Holly Miller – Artist
Shirley Pegna – Music

Many thanks to students at Arts University Bournemouth – Sarah Woollet, Mo Clouting, Heidi-Jo Heard, Eleanor Pollock, Lyddia Green, Amy Healy and Rimante Alisauskaite who toiled endlessly in a cold barn to build Iggy.

Emerald Ant works with scientists at the Jurassic Coast Team and our partners the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs to ensure our work is scientifically correct.

We are grateful to our supporters and partners: