at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester

I must admit I had some initial misgivings about Body Works. I mean, isn’t there something inherently creepy about an exhibition that creates art out of a load of dead bodies? And that Gunther Von Hagen. He wouldn’t look out of place in Nosferatu. And what exactly is he hiding under that hat? It can’t be anything as mundane as a bald head, surely?

Making my way in to the Museum of Science and Industry, my misgivings were exacerbated, because the exhibition seems to have been situated as far away as possible from any of the other displays, necessitating a punishing slog across old railway tracks and up and down numerous flights of stairs. It’s almost as though the museum feels there’s something seedy about it all

But you know, once you have got over the initial unease of looking at the first cadaver you encounter – a running man having a baton handed to him by his own skeleton (now there’s something you don’t see every day!) – you soon relax and start becoming interested in what’s on display. Oh, there are plenty of diseased livers and cancerous lungs to goggle at and there’s one particularly loathsome display depicting a man’s complete digestive system pinned to a notice board, but these are, if you’ll forgive the pun, just the bit-players in the proceedings.

The real jackpot are the corpses themselves, arranged (and sometimes severely disarranged) in a series of sporting postures. I was particularly intrigued by the unfortunate guy who had been frozen mid-leap and pulled apart in several different directions at once, so that the back of his skull was on the floor behind him, his brain was balanced atop his vertebral column and his arm and leg muscles dangling like streamers from his outstretched limbs, while on his face was such a look of unadulterated joy, you really did get the impression that this was the most fun he ever had. I liked the card players too, but they of course had already enjoyed a cameo in Casino Royale.

I learned as I trooped around that Gunther Von Hagen was not a creepy looking tit-finger but a boon to medical science. Indeed his invention of the process of plastination in 1977 had been one of the greatest break-throughs in the history of dissection. So think on. While you and I were pogoing frantically to The Sex Pistols, ol’ Gunther was in his laboratory, working out the best way to keep flayed bodies looking their best.

At the end of the exhibition, by the two flayed geezers jumping to head a football, I flicked through the visitor’s book, expecting to find protestations of moral outrage, but nearly all of the comments were enthusiastic, the only worrying one being somebody who complained that the exhibition should have included a lot more fat people (and presumably, the Elephant Man). But if you fancy a day out with a difference, Body Works might just be your cup of haemoglobin. Go on, let your hair down, you might just enjoy it.