I basically preface my review of the Natural History Museum’s big annual temporary exhibition the same way every year. Because there’s a dinosaur in the room that needs to be discussed: the NHM’s enjoyable but increasingly creaky dinosaur gallery. It’s charming and fun for fledgling dino-lovers, but it’s cramped, aging and far from cutting-edge, and we’re promised a major revamp by the NHM’s 150th birthday in 2031.
For now, the museum’s temporary exhibitions take up the slack in terms of the wow factor - techier, more interactive and above all just spaced out a lot more nicely. Not every year is about dinosaurs - the last to really focus on them was 2023’s Titananosaur exhibition - though they often work them in on some level anyway (see 2024’s Birds: Brilliant & Bizarre).
Here’s a doozy, though: Jurassic Oceans of course concerns itself with the various iconic sea creatures of the Mesozoic era - ‘Monsters of the Deep’ as its subtitle puts it. And it’s a delight. You learn plenty, like how the hell ammonites worked or why ichthyosaurs have such weird-looking eye sockets. There’s a series of increasingly impressive fossils, building to the impressive final full plesiosaur fossil. And unless you’re a real aqua-paleo nerd, you’ll likely come across a dozen or more species you’ve never heard of before, from sundry fish to various species of marine crocodile to the gargantuan whale shark-aline fish leedsichthys.
Really, though, it’s just a nice slick experience. It doesn’t have as much interactive computer stuff or as show-stopping a finale as Titanosaur. But it’s more consistently entertaining, with multiple short digital films bringing the ancient oceans to life – the megalodon one is particularly horrifying – and lots of surprisingly interesting stuff to touch (the replica of a Jurassic fish’s scaly hide is particularly impressive).
You’re also given a little pamphlet to get embossed stamps in from sundry information stations throughout, each devoted to a particular marine monster – it’s an idea as old as time, but it’s also really fun to do and again simply isn’t the sort of thing there’s the time or space to do in the dinosaur gallery. And of course it’s worth stressing that while it complements the wall-mounted oceanic fossils in the corridor outside, marine monsters are not a subject the NHM normally covers in any great depth. Sure, it feels like an obvious subject given the dino-centricity of the museum’s reputation, but it’s new ground for the museum.
It’ll be fascinating to see whether the new-look dinosaur gallery will be on a par with this stuff or if ultimately there simply won’t be space for something this luxurious. Still, it’s a hypothetical for now anyway: sure you have to pay, but Jurassic Oceans gives you your money’s worth – you’ll have an (ancient, carnivorous) whale of a time.
