Give us something with teeth for our money

My regular reader will recall I raised a few eyebrows with a comment in the early spring that I felt the museum was losing its way with the subject matter of these additional projects. The fact the City Council has had to support the museum with £400,000 worth of tax-payers money since it has opened seems to bear out my concerns.

The present touring exhibition that occupies the Pavilion space at the museum is Wild Planet, a display of image from 15 years of entrants into the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

It opened at the end of May – I wasn’t invited – and runs until August 31, effectively the whole summer. I nipped down this week to take it in.

I have to admit the images on display are rather good. Then again they should be. With the whole of the world’s wildlife to chose from and over a decade and a half there should be plenty of material to work with.

And you don’t have to be animal lover to gaze in wonder at the photographs. They range, in mu humble opinion, from the simply beautiful to the absolutely gorgeous.

My favourites had to be the Dalmation Pelican from Romania, Curious Bison shivering in the snow of Poland, and the superb Great Mimic octopus in the seas off Indonesia.

I’m not going to critique every image, and yes I would encourage you to visit. But there are a few nagging thoughts.

Why for instance do only a few of the images have Wild Talk information snippets? After reading how the photographs were taken these where they appeared were fascinating facts (elephants, I learnt, are the only mammals that cannot jump).

The exhibition does include a reasonable amount of educational support, and apart from a hint of preaching from wildlife expert Chris Packham’s welcome to visitors, on the whole is not too top heavy with conservation. But the children’s activity table with its curious display of stuffed birds seems out of place.

The inevitable video showing slides of wildlife, both fauna and flora, is a huge missed opportunity. What should be a eyeball-gripping, sensory-surrounding experience, is far too tame for a wild exhibition.

And too many images of landscapes in the USA. Just too many.

Most incongruous is the price of entry. The museum cannot, as with past temporary exhibitions, just sell tickets for Wild Planet. Visitors are forced to buy entry to the whole museum at £8.50 which, if you have seen the Titanic and Southampton maritime themed sections before is a lot to repeat the exercise. I was told this was because of licensing agreements to show the Wild Planet material. A pity.

On the Thursday much time I was there – yesterday in fact – I was accompanied by some half a dozen other visitors. How many had gone to visit the Wild Planet exhibition alone I wasn’t aware.

A beautiful exhibition, but also a missed opportunity to attract greater numbers. Why not turn the space into a jungle, or variety of planet landscapes? Let the tigers roar, the orang utan whoop, the bison snort? In short, why not envelope visitors of all ages, in the animal world rather than simply put it on the walls?

I know, I know. That’s now what this art is about. But that’s my point – again. We were promised this museum would be populist, a real crowd pleaser. And while this is a lovely exhibition of wild life photographs, and I genuinely hope you will go and visit, it still fails to fulfil the promises.

• What struck me while touring Wild Planet at the SeaCity Museum as I stared at the fangs, bared teeth, hooked beaks and gaping jaws, w as that one creature was surely missing: where was the exhibit from Uruguay? OK, cheap predictable jibe. But go on – you chuckled.