AS arena spectacular Walking with Dinosaurs arrives in Glasgow, ANN FOTHERINGHAM gets up close and personal with some of its enormous animatronic stars and the humans that make them walk, run ... and roar THE GIANT, rhino-like form of Torosaurus lumbers into view, snorting steam out of its huge nostrils.

AS arena spectacular Walking with Dinosaurs arrives in Glasgow, ANN FOTHERINGHAM gets up close and personal with some of its enormous animatronic stars and the humans that make them walk, run ... and roar

THE GIANT, rhino-like form of Torosaurus lumbers into view, snorting steam out of its huge nostrils.

A placid Plateosaurus tends her young - and then an ear-splitting roar shatters the silence and the mighty Allosaurus raises its head...

Going behind the scenes at the SECC this week is like taking a step back in time.

If it wasn't for the 100 or so technicians, directors, drivers, puppeteers and stage managers swarming around the arena, you could almost believe, just for a second, that dinosaurs ruled the earth once again.

It's all preparation for the Walking With Dinosaurs stage show that opens tonight, confidently promoted as 'The Arena Spectacular'. And spectacular is certainly is.

Around £12m has been spent on an all-new European version of the hit show that has toured Australia and America to sell-out crowds. Inspired by the BBC TV show of the same name, created and produced by Tim Haines, it has already been seen by 2.4 million people.

It took a team of 50 engineers, fabricators, skin makers, artists, painters and animatronics experts a year to build the original production in a Melbourne Docklands workshop big enough to park a 747.

Featuring 15 dinosaurs, including the terrifying T-Rex and the huge Brachiosaurus, which stands 36 feet tall, the show takes the audience through the evolution of these giant beasts from their first existence to their extinction.

Dan Cairns, from Lockerbie, is one of the dinosaur drivers.

"I love telling people that's what I do for a living," grins the 26-year-old. "I've been with the show for just seven weeks, so tonight will be my first time in front of a live audience - and I can't think of a better way to start the tour than in front of a Glasgow crowd. I think the audiences here will absolutely love it."

Dan, a former mechanic, drives the Allosaurus, from a small compartment underneath the giant beast.

"It's like climbing into a Formula 1 car - and it can get pretty hot," he says. "I'm on stage for about 15 minutes of every show, and the whole time you have to be pretty focused. We're listening all the time for cues and instructions, and sometimes, especially in the attack scenes, you get quite close to the other dinosaurs. It's a real adrenaline rush - I love it."

He adds: "It's like no other vehicle I have ever driven - and at about half a million pounds, it's more expensive than any car I'm ever likely to own!"

Director Scott Faris, a 54-year-old Californian who has been at the helm of the show since it first began in Australia in 2007, explains: "This is a brand new show for Europe - new, state of the art dinosaurs that do more, move quicker, are a bit more robust - and a new script, new music.

"We hope Glasgow audiences love it. I have never met anyone who has said dinos are boring. Everyone loves dinosaurs - they are like monsters from a fantastical story, and yet they actually lived here, on this planet.

"So it's like a link to another world, to our past."

Scott, who has directed a string of successful Broadway and Las Vegas shows around the world, admits he was skeptical when first approached to direct Walking With Dinosaurs.

"I just thought, what? Big stuffed dinos, like Barney?" he shakes his head. "I just couldn't believe it would work. But they kept at me, and eventually I went to Melbourne, to the workshop, and met my first dinosaur, and it was love at first sight. I was hooked!"

Gavin Sainsbury is one of the voodoo operators' - the puppeteers who work the rigs' that make the dinosaurs move. These rigs are miniature versions of the dinosaurs, with the same joints and range of movements as their life-size counterparts.

"This is my dream job," grins the 36-year-old from Sydney. "There's a lot of work goes into the show - we're talking about four weeks of 10-12 hour days, than another two weeks of 16-hour days - but the end result is truly spectacular.

"A team of three of us make each of the large dinos work - the driver, the lead voodoo operator, who makes all the big body and head movements, and the second voodoo operator, who does the jaw, and the blinking eyes, and so on."

Gavin, who started out as a puppeteer on kids' TV shows, adds: "I do the Plateosaurus - she's one of my babies! You do get a bit attached to them to be honest. The whole experience of working here is just amazing. I hope to stay with the tour for as long as possible.

He laughs: "And it would be kind of hard to go back to doing Punch and Judy after getting to work on a show like this..."

• Walking With Dinosaurs is at the SECC until July 5. Call 0870 040 4000 for tickets, priced from £20 plus booking fee. Visit www.dinosaurlive.com for more information.