Exhibition of the Week: Life and Death: Pompeii and Herculaneum, British Museum, London WC1

Moving: A street in Herculaneum (Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napolie Pompei /Trustees of the British Museum )

Moving and thought-provoking, this marvellous re-telling of the tragedy of Herculaneum and Pompeii in AD79 focuses on the everyday and concludes with a presentation of body casts of a selection of those who died.

Its triumph is in its pacing. It opens with a walk through the streets of the city and an examination of the house of a prosperous citizen.

Everything here is the stuff of the everyday that was dramatically arrested. The presentation is sober until the most poignant moment, which shows us a family who died together.

Throughout the show there has been sound, but here we are greeted by silence. Which is as it should be.

(020 7323 8299) to 29 September