A lost interview with a young man claiming to be the grafitti artist Banksy has been discovered in an ITV vault.
Filmed shortly before the famously elusive artist’s breakthrough Turf War exhibition in 2003, it shows a man whose face is covered with a baseball cap and T-shirt, showing only his eyes and part of his brow.
It was broadcast on ITV London at the time but forgotten about, until Bristol-based ITV reporter Robert Murphy found it while researching Banksy.
The man is shown working on two pieces attributed to Banksy: a black insect on a wall, and a baby playing with alphabet blocks that spell: “KILL MORE.”
“I’m disguised because you can’t really be a graffiti writer and then go public,” the man tells reporter Haig Gordon in the 35-second interview. “The two things don’t quite go together.”
Asked about spraying “Designated Riot Area” on Nelson’s Column, the man says: “I thought that was quite funny.”
Gordon asks: “You don’t mind if I pass your details on to the police?”
“No. What details have you got?” the man replies.
Murphy found the report in the ITV News archives and conceded it was impossible to say if the man was Banksy. But he said the clip showed an artist purporting to be Banksy creating art at an official Banksy exhibition.
“He was relaxed, he was laid-back, he was amiable. I quite took to him,” Gordon recalled. “I was dreading a pretentious arty-farty type, but he was very pleasant.”
He added that he was not certain it was the real Banksy: “But it seemed like an organised event. The press officer seemed like a normal press officer who wouldn’t be playing a trick on the media.”
Banksy’s team responded with: “No comment. We get loads of these.”
It was recently revealed that Banksy was the artist behind Stormzy's Union Jack stab vest, which the grime star wore during his headline performance at Glastonbury Festival last weekend.
In a post on Instagram, Banksy wrote: “I made a customised stab-proof vest and thought – who could possibly wear this? Stormzy at Glastonbury.”
Stormzy shared the post on Twitter, adding the caption: ”Absolutely f****** speechless.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
