Under Attack: London, Coventry, Dresden

It's partly because the museum's permanent displays make such a good job of telling the story of 'London Transport at War' that this temporary exhibition disappoints. Set apart from the airy, main galleries, where the trains and buses of yesteryear evoke history in a way that cold, hard facts seldom can, the text-heavy exhibition, which tries to impart a great deal of history in a relatively small space, struggles to hold your attention. The show races from the preparations for war in the three cities, through provision for sheltering, to passenger and staff experiences, to subsequent rebuilding programmes. It succeeds best in contrasting morale-building myth – a clip of comedy duo Gert and Daisy leading a knees-up in an Underground station – with shocking reality – a newspaper story about the 173 people killed at Bethnal Green station, not hit by a bomb but crushed to death in a stairwell during a stampede.