by Emily PackerEver since William Blake declared Milton to be of the Devil’s party without knowing it, artists in all media have relied on exceptional villains to provide a creative jolt to old storylines, and add a certain measure of twisted appeal to their dramatic repertoire. In the world of film, where directors have visual as well as verbal means at hand, some villains become so iconic as to eclipse not only their virtuous opponents, but the movies in which they appear altogether.

The villains that linger longest in the public consciousness – Dracula, Frankenstein, even the Joker – are not so much men as magnificent monsters. They hover before us not as human beings but as collections of visual cues or as personifications of a horrible ideal. For instance, Darth Vader, that hoary old devil of science fiction, once petrified audiences with no more than a face-masking helmet and an unnatural union of man and machine. So famous are Vader’s voice and appearance that his past and his eventual redemption are almost beside the point; when we think of Star Wars’ most famous villain, we think not of his rather hackneyed character-arc but of the heavy breathing, the easily-parodied catchphrases and the inability to retain qualified subordinates.

Yet however enduring these eminent monsters, portraying them in film is often a thankless job; think only of how many tired jokes James Earl Jones must have to endure in the queue at the supermarket. Assignments in villainy that yield more productive careers – and Oscars – tend to be of a more subtle sort; evil that is equally foreign and implacable, but hidden behind an unlikely face. One such face is that of Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched in a much-lauded adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In Kesey’s novel, the author’s misogyny flexes itself in a portrayal of mental-hospital warden as lurid, emasculating witch. But the film departs from the book in the inspired casting of an actress who is girlishly plump, superlatively average: exactly the sort of mild, beleaguered professional whom you’d expect to find in the whitewashed halls of a sterile ward. When she halts the rebellious hero in his tracks with a rebuff in that bland, serenely infantilising coo, we perceive just as he does that he is up against an institution incarnate; an ethos of control unassailable by mortal man.

Under the aegis of a Czech director, Nurse Ratched becomes not only a single power-mad official but a symbol for the social oppression perpetrated by Communism and all systems like it. The Nurse belongs, in that capacity, to another popular category of adversary: villain as social diagnosis, bringing to life the disturbing extremes beneath a familiar cultural or national cliché. In American Psycho, Christian Bale, trimmed and buffed to a gym-bland perfection, plays Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street shark so consumed by the quest for money and status that he murders a colleague who one-ups him with a supremely elegant new business card. “Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it,” deadpans Bale, the very voice of helpless envy. “Oh, my God. It even has a watermark.” Bale’s performance transforms a lone psychopath into a rather hilarious satire on a culture that pursues the most exclusive dinner reservations, office stationery, and – at least in this instance – thrill kills simply to escape ennui.

Yet however compelling a Vader or a Ratched or a Bateman, they are ultimately the object of our gaze rather than the agent of it; we marvel at them, but we do not inhabit them. It takes a more recognisably human villain to submerge the viewer in the mind of a fiend. For instance, Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley plays deftly with the viewer’s social instincts by exploring how old class resentments can curdle into murderous rage in the psyche of a scrawny everyman. Mistaken by a shipping magnate for a college friend of his son’s, restroom attendant Tom Ripley lies his way into an all-expenses-paid vacation to Italy to reclaim the errant scion. Having met his quarry and succumbed by slow degrees to obsessive jealousy, Ripley brutally murders the dissolute heir on his boat. Yet as Minghella again and again contrasts our weedy villain with his rich, handsome, leisured counterpart, he summons the latent sympathies of the nerdy, ostracized young exile inside all of us, and we are left with the furtive feeling that the golden playboy perhaps got what he deserved. A villain of the Ripley sort often becomes the film’s most sympathetic protagonist, because he is an outcast in a world of glittering insiders, a man with whom we can easily, though reluctantly, identify. It is very easy to see oneself as a Salieri, for instance, but much less so to imagine oneself a Mozart – so our affinities are at once with the thwarted and scheming mediocrity, not the giggling, filthy-minded imp blessed by the gods.

The Ripleys and Salieris of the world of film are, to me, its most frightening villains. Very few of us will ever have to reckon with Dracula or Leatherface in a dark alley, but each of us might become the prey of a resentful rival, or be tricked by these same vengeful victims into unwilling empathy. The most memorable villainy is in the end that which is closest to home: the dangerous gleam in a neighbour’s eye, the flickering shadow at the end of a dark lane, or the suspicion that even you, in a certain set of circumstances, could somehow find yourself as the black hat.

by Adam BurrowsWoody Allen’s Manhattan has produced one of film’s most memorable and iconographic love scenes. Mary (Diane Keaton) and Ike (Woody Allen) meet at a party and ride home in a cab together. At first Mary plays coy to Ike’s subtle and sharp wit. But soon, his humour wins her over, and their midnight stroll takes them to a bench by the 59th Street Bridge, looking over the river and watching the sunrise. Douglas Brode thinks this scene perhaps the movie’s strongest moment: “In the film’s most unforgettable image, Mary and Isaac grow deeply involved with one another on a wistful New York late-night interlude.” Accompanied by Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”, sumptuously photographed in black and white by cinematographer Gordon Willis, the scene is irresistibly romantic.
But behind Ike and Mary’s blossoming relationship, like all other attachments in Manhattan, is a dysfunction which will cause future upset. As the couple come to rest for the scene’s final shot on the river bank, Allen shows his genius for composing a single image which both romanticises and disrupts the moment. The wide-screen format used by Allen in the film allows for the positioning of Mary and Ike to the extreme right of the frame. The industrial towers to the extreme left of the frame disrupt the visual harmony and contribute to the feeling of disjunction about the couple.They appear dwarfed by the magnificent and imposing bridge which dominates the shot.

The characters even comment on the beauty of the city as Ike says “This city is really a great city, I don’t care what anyone says.” But his enthusiasm is met with a harsh rebuke from Mary, who reminds Ike that she has a lunch date with another man later that day.

Mary’s sudden realisation of other personal engagements occurs in the context of what we already know about the characters themselves. Ike is dating a 17-year old schoolgirl, perhaps to overcome the depression of his failed marriage. Mary is the dutiful mistress to Yale, a married man and Ike’s best friend. As characters, they can both be forgiven for wanting to indulge in the romantic sunset, but they must face the reality of their own romantic failures to begin with.

The bridge itself plays a part in Allen’s visual genius. It is not the Brooklyn Bridge of 8mm or the Verrazano of Saturday Night Fever, this is the little known 59th Street Bridge which links NYC to the district of Queens. It is also better known in literary terms as the bridge which links Manhattan to the Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby. These may be facts of local and literary knowledge, but they prove that director Woody Allen was not simply placing his tripod in front of any old bridge in Manhattan. Nor was cinematographer Gordon Willis clumsily aligning his shot so that it looked nice and romantic. In the modern contemporary culture of one of the world’s biggest cities, Woody Allen teaches us that romance is a transient thing. Like the New York sunrise, it can be breathtaking, but it also signifies the onset of new problems.

by Theodore JonesAlthough Pinter claims never to have seen the original Sleuth, it is clear that this 2007 remake plays into a complex system of cross-references through which the film defines its adherence to and departure from the classic 1972 model. The most obvious of these is the casting of Michael Caine – the original Milo – who now plays the forever calculating, highly intelligent detective crime writer, Andrew Wyke. Jude Law, doing another Alfie, is cast as the younger, more handsome unemployed artist: Milo Tindle. The film sees the first-time collaboration between screenwriter Pinter, producer Law and director Branagh: one that is at best ostensibly inexperienced and at worst wholly contrived.

The plot is orientated around a battle of the wits – the taking of the older man’s wife by the younger man only represents a superficial first card. Each set of the game is determined by shrewd psychological manoeuvres in which each character attempts to outdo the other. However, brutal physical undertones permeate the unfolding of the action, suggesting a more sinister direction. This dichotomy between the intellect and the physical is the very essence of the Branagh remake. But, by virtue of the Pinter screenplay, it is the overwhelming presence of the physical that determines what is original and novel.

The film has flaws. At times the lines are laboured and utterly unconvincing despite the competence of the actors, whose performances are generally self-assured, even commanding. The physical dualism is often thrown into relief by the presence of the gun – and this serves to rid the plot of a more sophisticated character relation. The brutality of the weapon negates the unspoken compatibility of the actors although in the first two thirds of the film, this does help to emphasise the intellectual battle that is being fought.

Ultimately, the only way the struggle can progress is by one character drawing the other into his confidence. Sure enough, Caine proposes that the two characters live together, assuming a compatibility that has been suggested but seems utterly absurd given the context. Law sidles up to Caine and asks to see his bedroom where the bed, he is sure, is bigger. When they reach the bedroom both lie on the bed and the game is at once as complex as it has ever been, each manoeuvre painfully slow. But we know the stalemate cannot last: Law jumps up from the bed and as he does so breaks the spell. The character refuses to be taken into Caine’s confidence, and since he has manoeuvred Caine into a false sense of trust, he is in the undeniable position of supremacy.

The best thing about Sleuth is the standard of acting, which brings out the sinister chords of the Pinter script and its broad dramatic rhythms beautifully. Caine is coldly calculating, Law is visceral and energetic. Definitely one to watch.

by Kristen DiLemnoDirected by Benjamin and Gabe Turner, In the Hands of the Gods follows five free-styling footballers trekking from England to Argentina to meet their hero, Diego Maradona. Without any money for food, lodgings or travel, they perform and hustle their way south from New York.

The five friends – Sami, Mikey, Jeremy, Danny and Paul – have a touching dynamic that generally withstands seeing one other non-stop for four weeks. Bickering tends to take a backseat to pride in each other’s skills, and their backgrounds are rough enough to encourage sticking together. Sami takes a break to check in with his parole officer, while Mikey gets choked up over the untimely deaths of his two best friends. None come from particularly privileged backgrounds, and all reveal that football gave them something to work toward.

The people they encounter in Mexico and Central America construct a surprisingly poignant backdrop for In the Hands of the Gods. Workers in small towns donate generously to the boys’ passionate cause, and an impoverished family takes in Sami and Paul for a night. The Turners manage to capture scattered moments of humour during the trip. Sami promises a kiss to any girl who can get the football away from Paul, and an astonished Mikey informs his mum that three Englands could fit in Texas alone – “and that’s only one of the 52 states”. But the bonding sometimes slips into gooey sentimentality, particularly when Jeremy pleads with his best pals to embrace Jesus. It’s sweet that the friends have each other’s backs, but proselytising and enjoining one another to “follow that dream” border on family-film frippery.

Montage sequences of the guys free-styling offer a much-needed reprieve from the MTV-style melodrama. Their obvious talent and camaraderie when busking make the misery of sleeping in cars and hustling deals at restaurants almost seem worth it. The soul of In the Hands of the Gods lies in the unity of the group. When it breaks up in Mexico – they only earn enough cash for two of the five to fly from Guatemala to Argentina – the factions have to find their way to Maradona separately. Even with the unfortunate split, In the Hands of the Gods captures a lively enough journey across the Americas. The fantastic free-styling and emotional train wrecks make for an engaging documentary.

by Ellen GriffithsThe intricate court politics of Macbeth are emphasised from the start in Will Cudmore’s production. Cudmore’s quirky interpretation of the play often delivers excellent results. King Duncan (played by Jonathan Tilley) is re-imagined, and convincingly played, as a stereotypical Old Etonian: exuding self-confidence he flirts with Lady Macbeth, using ‘give me your hand’ and ‘fair and noble lady’ as cues for lechery. The irony is made clear; Duncan aniticipates a romantic tryst, but will in fact soon be murdered.

Cudmore aims to keep his version of Macbeth “short and extremely compelling”, cutting the witches’ famous chant ‘double, double, toil and trouble’ and dressing the characters as modern-day men of power. Meanwhile Ed Chalk as Macbeth is brilliant – in the early scenes he could easily be a Union hack, trembling with nervous excitement at the prospect of promotion, ingratiating himself with snake-like smiles and platitudes. His twitching hands and gleaming eyes convey both desparate ambition and the onset of madness.

A deliberate decision to avoid scene changes keeps the play swift and powerful, but perhaps too action-packed. It rushes through Macbeth’s inner turmoil and spends too long on excellently choreographed but irrelevant fight scenes. Shakespeare’s tragedies are known for their psychological impact, but in this version Macbeth’s tormented state is almost lost in the tumble of action.
 Anna Popplewell, we’re told tactfully, has acted in several films (who’d have thought it?) and her experience shines through as she plays Lady Macbeth with understatement, manipulating her husband’s ambition and disentangling herself from King Duncan’s flirtations. Cudmore has succeeded in presenting a kind of crash course in the Scottish Play: while sometimes rushed, this play is short and utterly compelling.                                             

by Sam PritchardFamous film or not, The Lion in Winter is a bad idea. The play describes the tortuous family conflict between Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and their sons. It is a sort of cross between a Shakespeare history play and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Don’t let that give you a mistaken impression of its quality. Goldman’s idea is to combine his historical setting with the dialogue of a modern domestic drama.

The problem is that this dialogue is crap. It veers from the tediously melodramatic to lines that the writer seems to have mistaken for the witty and razor sharp exchanges of political negotiation. Chief among its irritating qualities is the incessant repetition of the phrase: “You’re good”, as characters compliment each other on the success of their scheming. Another lowlight is the baffling and horrific love scene between the King of France and Richard the Lionheart (yep, the crusade one). The young king talks about “that hunting trip” when their illicit love was first broached and proceeds to nuzzle with the Lionheart.

It took me a while to decide what I thought about The Lion in Winter because Harriet Bradley’s production did such a good job of shouldering all the blame. The performances can be divided into the extremely lazy or ridiculously mannered. The former camp is well represented by Toby Pitts-Tucker as Richard. He occupies the part without character or intonation and looks entirely vacant throughout. Brian McMahon and Sam Bright ably provide the more mannered elements of the performance. Both indulge in copious amounts of hands-behind-the-back acting and over-emphatic cackling. They negotiate like two squabbling Latin teachers, with none of the gravitas you would expect from two monarchs.

The rest of the cast indulge in more of the same. Katie Leviten has some sense of poise and authority as Queen Eleanor, but rather than build a character she simply vamps up her lines in a style borrowed from the Wicked Witch of the West. The lethargic and monotonous pace of the whole exercise did nothing but frustrate the development of these performances even further.

More than anything else, The Lion in Winter is a product of negligent direction. Even if you call it “minimalistic” and “stripped-back”, filling the BT with some tables and chairs does not amount to a design. I would find it hard to believe that much time had been spent properly thinking about this play, its characters, story and politics. Asking four or five pounds for a production that is so profoundly lazy and ill-conceived seems pretty inappropriate. After all, Hollyoaks is on every night next week, and it’s better, shorter, sharper and freer than this mess.
                                    

by Jack FarchyHumphrey’s Unpleasantness is a sketch show that, we’re told, “explores the line between comedy and tragedy.” Director Richard Jones claims to be “interested in what the audience is prepared to laugh at, and at what point they will stop laughing.” Sounds exciting. Are we going to be pushed to the edges of our comfort zone? Will our taboos be explored and probed? Will we find ourselves in hysterical laughter one moment, only to be shocked, moved and ashamed of our laughter the next?

No, we won’t. Whatever it may say on the tin, this show isn’t doing anything experimental, quirky, or, frankly, interesting. The material is about as mainstream and unoriginal as you could hope for. Stereotypes abound: public school teachers are secretly gay, bankers are wankers, old people are deaf, etcetera, etcetera. Worse still, these stereotypes are not invoked in order to be later undermined, but just because, well, stereotypes are funny, aren’t they? Isn’t it a great laugh that old people are deaf?
It’s a shame that their material is so bad, because everything else about this show is fine. The performances from Joe Markham, Joe Parham, and a cameo from Ross Young are confident and engaging.

In particular, I was fascinated by Joe Markham’s range and quality of facial expressions. His tongue flits coyly around his lips as the randy, absentminded presenter of the TV programme, ‘Tiny Tales for Tiny Tots’; as a masturbating bank manager, his face undergoes all sorts of interesting contortions; and he neatly captures the chewing motion and slack mouth of an old lady wearing false teeth.

In the end, though, there is little more to say about this than that it’s a comedy show that isn’t funny. It is playing in the late slot at the BT, so hopefully its audience will have had a few drinks by the time they arrive – if so, they might enjoy it more than I did. If, by some misfortune, you are coerced into going sober, just keep on focusing on the wonders of Joe Markham’s face.                                                                                                                                           

I open a solitary bloodshot eye and reach for the phone.

“You’re needed at a press preview.  They’ve been waiting twenty minutes!”

If they will schedule these blasted things at three o’clock in the bally afternoon, they might well expect a critic taking a dark view of proceedings. Still, objectivity, that’s the ticket.

So, with undue abruptness, the week’s labours commence. After a fortifying snoot of Armagnac, stiffening the sinews as it were, I summon my man Smuckers to call the car up.

The grisly business dispensed with, I pop by the Madding for a few complimentary snifters.  Will Young sends over the customary case of Montecristo, topping chap, and that old dear Cartwright treats me to a glass of vino.  His selection of wine number two on the list (House Red) is duly noted, curiously coinciding with the number of stars his next production will be receiving.

Making to leave, the way is blocked by that unwashed guttersnipe Hunt screeching some hullabaloo concerning the proletariat.  As the impudent clod reels from the force of ivory striking forehead, I brush aside some beseeching freshmen with an airy wave of the digits. If the fellows wish to curry favour by disporting au naturel in the rumpus room, they can dashed well get in line.

I return to the study around tennish, with a view to bashing the damn thing out. My long-time housekeeper Mrs Buddle, a kindly doddering presence, helps me into my smoking jacket while I set to musing. That intractable yank Seddon interrupts part way through with some inquiry. Jolly nice fellow, though perfectly incomprehensible. The squib is usually wired back to me in five minutes or so with some annotation. “You can’t call Sophie D a **** in print!  Think of the litigation -RM”.  Poor chap.  A decent sort, but low on spunk.

Exhausting work, naturally. A servant of the public has a duty to those who depend upon him to remain vigorous and acute. The responsibility of relaxation, if you will. Always partial to the traditional sauna, I prefer to end the working week with a healthful blast of Finnish steam. I reflect on integrity and sacrifice as Sian Robbins-Grace emerges from the billowing clouds grinning maliciously, birch bough firmly in hand.

by Felicity BrunswickUnlike most galleries, Christ Church Picture Gallery does not present any grand classicised façade but is simply accessed through a modest and inconspicuously labelled door. When bookshelves displaced the bays in which many of Christ Church’s paintings were previously hung, the decision was made to build a gallery in which to house the college’s extensive collection of art. On the completion of this new Picture Gallery in May 1968, the building was praised by critics for its “unobtrusive” nature; such that “even the most conservative of dons could hardly complain that it clashed with the gems of architecture surrounding it”. Yet, with this indeed being the case, it is hardly surprising how many people fail to notice it is even there and so sadly pass by the treasures inside.

The majority of the paintings are displayed in two main rooms and are predominantly Italian. The first contains pieces from the 14th to early 16th century, including works by such esteemed masters as Sandro Botticelli and Fillippo Lippi. This room leads on to a second, larger room that is mainly composed of paintings from the Baroque period, and it is in this room that some of the better-known pieces are located such as  The Butcher’s Shop, by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). With its grand scale, gruesome subject matter, and various possibilities for interpretation (as a ground-breaking still life, a personal piece with biographical reference or perhaps as an allegorical depiction of biblical significance) it has attracted particular attention and study.

An equally impressive Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) depicting The Continence of Scipio holds the central point of focus as one enters the room from the corridor and vividly coveys the bold theatricality of this artistically exuberant period. Next to this frame, however, hangs another of Van Dyck’s works, which would not, perhaps, be so widely recognised. Sketched in oils on canvas, the Soldier on Horseback depicts the solitary motif emerging with vigour from a vague background furnished only with a modest green-brown wash. This piece has, up until recently, been considered an ‘oil sketch’ – a preparatory sketch made to plot out forms for a larger oil painting (such as Mars Going to War, displayed in a viewing cabinet in the same room). However, this particular sketch does not seem to fit the typical criteria of an oil sketch, being both too large and displaying only a fragment of a greater composition. Therefore, it seems more likely that this is, in fact, an underpainting, cut from a larger work. Furthermore, evidence suggests that the Louvre’s version of The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is the original canvas from which the Christ Church section was removed. Recognised for its worth as an independent piece of work, the Soldier on Horseback was retained, collected and today, displayed as a glorious success of the artist’s dexterity, as exciting and captivating as the resultant painting from which it was sacrificed to profit.

This gallery holds a vast hoard of such fascinating artefacts. Extending back, the corridor, lined with still more paintings, leads to a small room displaying different selections of some of the many drawing kept in storage throughout the year (16th and 17th century drawings from Bologna are showing at present). Christ Church Picture Gallery is positively brimming with art, and so, though it is small, it never stagnates, stationed next to the college library as a continual source of interest and discovery.

by Jeremy CliffeAt the back of the dinosaur-filled skeletal structure of the Natural History Museum on South Parks Road, a short flight of stairs leads down into one of Oxford’s hidden wonders: the Pitt Rivers Museum. A huge totem pole looms over this cavernous space, which, whilst only a little larger than the Sheldonian Theatre, houses over half a million anthropological treasures. Silhouettes of the atrium’s ironwork frame lead the eye upwards to a curved roof resembling the upturned hull of a wooden galleon; with the eerie lighting this makes for a haunting atmosphere. But it is the impression of clutter (in the very best sense of the word) that strikes the visitor most – imagine an antiques market, a shaman’s store cupboard and a magpie’s nest all rolled into one.

Founded in 1884 in accordance with the will of collector extraordinaire, General Augustus Pitt Rivers, this temple to bric-a-brac is almost impossible to pin down. It describes itself as a museum of ‘Anthropology and World Archaeology’, but the collections are far broader than is suggested by such a prosaic précis. A random selection of the objects encompassed includes snuff-taking equipment, Japanese theatrical masks, surgical instruments, astrological guides, zithers, tarot cards, and ballerina dolls made out of giant flies. This definition-defying multifariousness might explain why such a wondrous Aladdin’s cave is not better known amongst Oxonians. Where there is awareness of the Pitt Rivers, it is usually in the context of the museum’s high-profile and ethically-dubious display of shrunken human heads from the Upper Amazon.

Yet once the morbid impulse to headhunt has been duly satisfied, a visit offers many unexpected joys. The densely displayed collections comprise far too many exhibits for the visitor to be thorough about his or her browsing, and the material precludes any logically ordered perusal. This leaves one free to dart between show cases according to whim. The labels are hand-written in copperplate script on yellowing paper, with archaic geographical references – Rhodesia, Ceylon, Zululand – and delightful descriptions, such as this comment on a card next to the famous ‘witch in a bottle’: ‘Obtained about 1915 from an old lady living in a village near Hove, Sussex. She remarked “and they do say there be a witch in it and if you let it out there it be a peck o’ trouble.”’

But between now and 29th June 2008, visitors are in for an additional treat in the form of the splendid ‘Studio Cameroon’ exhibition. Stretching along a short corridor to the right of the museum’s entrance, this features a selection of the portraits taken in ‘Studio Photo Jacques’. Established by Jacques Touselle in the town of Mbouda in Cameroon’s Western Highlands in 1970, the studio’s output encompasses a wide range of formats, a fact reflected in the exhibition, which includes photos for ID cards, marriage certificates, photos of friends and family groups, light-hearted portraits of individuals and of fashions. Moving from photo to photo the viewer notes the recurring backdrops and props used in the studio, a mixture of traditional and modernity, and above all a firm sense of the individuality of the subjects. Indeed, the real joy of ‘Studio Cameroon’ is found in the sense of Touselle capturing not just a person, but a ‘moment’.. Even the most composed of the photos – those taken for official documents – are full of feeling; a woman leans toward her husband, her forehead touching his, a young man stares confrontationally at the camera while in the next photo along a woman in the same universal passport photo pose gazes mournfully at the lens, a fearful look in her eyes. The way these are presented in their full original size, pre-cropping, situates them firmly in their context. We see glimpses of prints on the studio wall, pieces of lighting equipment intrude into the edges of pictures and in one, a wizened elderly gentleman squints at the lens while the eyes and fingers of the photographer’s assistant holding up the backdrop protrude into the top of the frame.

‘Studio Photo Jacques’ becomes a window on provincial life in ‘70s and ‘80s Cameroon; a society urbanising, bureaucratising, and increasingly receptive to outside influences. Two young women in patterned gowns and headdresses proudly show off a handbag and cassette player, a boy with a mischievous grin balances a tray of cigarettes on his head, and a matriarch brandishes a large fly whip, a symbol of authority, with two gourds resting at her feet. One of the most charming portraits is that of a businessman dressed in a suit and carrying a walking stick. He could be waiting for a bus anywhere in the world were it not for the intricate pattern of beads that decorates the stick. The prop grounds him in the world outside the studio door. This is one of several portraits in which the lines and patterns of 1970s aesthetics are juxtaposed with the geometric designs of traditional artwork. Touselle works with subjects of all ages and classes, and his affection for the people of Mbouda is plain to see. Local costumes are set in arrangements and poses which heighten their timeless grace, and while a suave besuited gentleman gazes seriously into the distance, the painted lion on the backdrop behind him roars at the camera. The photos are a synthesis of artist and subject.

Indeed, for all of the eclectic delights of the museum, the photos represent a very distinct approach to the portrayal of world customs and peoples. Whereas the museum’s collections group specimens of human behaviour thematically, disconnected from origins from which some were separated under questionable circumstances (such as the ornamental skulls ‘found’ on a ledge outside a wooden house-front by the donor), the exhibition offers an intimate, complete portrayal of its subject, firmly bound to its context. A visit to these engaging examples of two very different formats of anthropological understanding is truly fascinating – the Pitt Rivers is a peck o’ joy, and offers much more than just shrunken heads.