WILDLIFE television presenter Michaela Strachan swapping the screen for the stage this summer as she stars in Walking With Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular across the UK.

The 52-year-old, known for her stints on Springwatch, Countryfile and The Really Wild Show, will take on the role of palaeontologist Huxley in the £15m production based on the BBC television series, which kicks off in Newcastle on July 20.

Nine species are represented from the entire 200 million year reign of the dinosaurs.

The show includes the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the terror of the ancient terrain, as well as the Plateosaurus and Liliensternus from the Triassic period, the Stegosaurus and Allosaurus from the Jurassic period and Torosaurus and Utahraptor from the awesome Cretaceous period. The largest of them, the Brachiosaurus, is 11 metres tall and 17 metres from nose to tail. It took a team of 50 – including engineers, fabricators, skin makers, artists and painters, and animatronic experts – a year to build the production. This updated production will showcase spectacular and colourful changes to the dinosaurs based on the latest scientific research.

Metroradioarena.co.uk