It's almost as if the urge to washboard is intrinsically human.

But the shifting moral tone is perfectly caught in Helen McCrory's polymorphous Phocion, who is mischievously aware of her sexual power and switches from macho snarls when seducing a woman to flirty oeillades when playing with a man.

A hired diplomat in Edirne and to the Porte in Constantinople, a military commander in the Austro-Turkish wars, a polyhistor and a learned man.

And even by the Auto-Tuned, falsettoed, post-nightclub conventions of contemporary R&B, this is a colossally strange record: Ciara is taxed like never before.