The director of a popular theatre production thought he was going to jail after shipping fake dinosaurs into the UK.
Mike Newman, who directed and wrote the Dinosaur Adventure Live trilogy, says he went from fear to relief after unboxing a huge T-Rex at a port in Southampton.
He continued: "We ordered the dinosaurs from China and were met by a group of port staff. They didn't believe me in the slightest. I think they thought the boxes would be full of illegal goods.
"As I opened the boxes, I thought to myself 'suppose I have been stitched up here and there's something in the boxes that shouldn't be?' For a moment, I had this deep panic that I would end up in jail. But the lid comes off, and to my relief, there is a huge T-Rex."
As well as the Rex, Mike ordered an Apatosaurus, Raptor, and some baby dinosaurs, for the trilogy. The first part, Dinosaur Adventure Live: Danger on T-Rex Mountain, is set to return to Eastwood Park Theatre in Giffnock on August 6, 2026.
The production will follow rangers on their quest to recover the data crystal and save the dinosaurs. The interactive show will be filled with dinosaur and palaeontological facts and will feature a shadowy raptor on the loose and baby dinosaurs that the audience can feed.
As the show enters its fifth year of touring, Mike revealed that he has made revisions to the first part -making it bigger and better than ever.
He said: “I added a caveman into part two of the trilogy and he worked well.
"He was very funny and the kids liked him. I made it so that he evolved the same way the dinosaurs had, which was in a lab by the professor, and he literally appears out of an egg. I created him for second part of the trilogy; he then stayed for part three and has returned for part one. He was fun to write.
“There is also a new T-Rex which is bigger, brighter, and is partly animatronic as well, which is pretty cool.
“When we hit the ground running in 2022 with the first show, I then created a new set of dinosaurs for the second show and another for the third. That is beauty of going back and re-working the shows because the kids get to see an array of dinosaurs.”
Danger on T-Rex Mountain is followed by Dinosaur Adventure Live: Trouble on Volcano Island and Dinosaur Adventure Live: The Big Jurassic Storm.
For more information on the trilogy, click HERE
Mike, who is the son of comic Mike Newman, is well known for presenting a live stage version of The Sooty Show.
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