The Art of not Falling Over

His outfit was home-made. And – apart from his oversized white gloves – you would never have guessed he was Mickey Mouse. But my daughter wanted to see him wave. So she threw a few coins into his hat. ‘Mickey’, however, wanted a few coins more. I told him he was treading on children’s dreams, but he just stood there. My wife said that if I poked my finger through his big fat papier mache head I would tread on a few more children’s dreams, so we left. And had the set lunch at Pizza Express.

It was my first encounter with a ‘living statue’ – a street performer who stands around for a living. And there’s a world of living statuery to choose from. I’ve seen a chameleon on a bike, a blue guitarist and a policeman in a tutu. And I’ve seen a silver man who stands with his legs really far apart. It’s difficult to see “not falling over” as any kind of art, but it pays the bills. And, as any performer will tell you, paying the bills is an art in itself.

Todays living statues are actually part of a noble and historic tradition that dates back to the tableaux vivants – or living pictures – of the early medieval period. In the tableaux, costumed actors would create a scene by remaining silent and motionless, as if they were in a picture. Over time, actors took the tableaux out onto the streets. It’s now such a profitable business that there are ‘living statues’ in every city round the world.

The traditionalists in the living statues world still choose to look like statues. And they specialise in stone, metal, glass or wood. But they have a problem. If they are too convincing as statues, passers-by just pass them by. And their takings suffer. So, these days, they move. If someone puts a few coins in their hat, they will blow a kiss, do a dance, hand over a flower – anything, as long as it attracts a bit of a crowd. I just wish someone had told ‘Mickey’.

Matt Walters first decided to become a living statue after walking through the Fontainebleau gardens in Paris. “I saw hundreds of people gathered round this statue of a beautiful girl” he says. “When I leant forward to touch it, it grabbed me and I made a complete arse of myself. Every time it grabbed a different person, the crowd got bigger and bigger. I thought ‘That’s for me’.” He decided he would create a living statue of a chimney sweep.

A convincing look is vital. Which is why Walters decided against gold and silver. “You don’t get gold or silver statues in real life” he says. “You get pewter. That’s what cuts it – coming up with something believable.” He applies his base of black make-up, with bronze highlighting, by using plastic spray bottles. “Jif bottles are great” he says, “but the paint clogs up the nozzle eventually.” Walters does all the make-up himself. Every inch, down to the small of his back.

And then comes the standing still. Which isn’t as easy as it looks. For a start, it can go on for a considerable length of time. It’s taxing on the body, and a wibble or a wobble can ruin your performance. Walters, whose statue always pulls a crowd, can go an hour without blinking. It helps that he’s a marathon runner and can drop his heart rate down to 24. “It’s useful” says Walters. “As a living statue, you need to make sure people can’t see you breathe.”

Chris Clarkson is one of the best living statues in the business. In fact, Clarkson represented Britain at this year’s World Statue Championships in the Netherlands. He got the idea for his Greek statue with pouring water from a local garden centre. “At the Championships” says Clarkson, “two kids walked up to me wanting to be splashed. I got them a few times and built up a nice crowd of 50 or so people. But then their Dad walked up to collect them….”

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that living statues can’t move their eyes. They are, after all, statues. So, they wear sunglasses (which the purists think of as cheating) or they focus on a fixed point until it’s time to change position. All they can see clearly is what they’re focussed on – everything else is peripheral. “Many a time I’ve thought a short 30-year-old was a 10-year-old, and vice versa” says Clarkson. Which explains his confusion over the ‘Dad’.

“Anyway” he says, “I reckoned I could get a roar from the audience if I splashed the Dad as well as the kids” says Clarkson. “So I turned around on my plinth and poured (yes, poured) water all over him. However, as I rotated, I saw him clearly. He wasn’t the boys’ Dad – he was a policeman. For a brief moment I thought I was going to end up in a Dutch prison, but fortunately he laughed – after the shock of the cold water had sunk in. The audience loved it and I made a small fortune in Euros.”

There are signposts around Covent Garden in London that say ‘No Busking’. But the buskers don’t pay any attention. Nor do the police, who patrol the area in search of pickpockets. Covent Garden is where the world’s leading exponents of the living statue art come to work, but Westminster Council allow only five unofficial pitches – on James Street – so the competition is intense. At the weekend, artists arrive at 4am. And things can get nasty.

Duncan Meadows, who has been doing his ‘Centurion’ statue in Covent Garden for six years, had a falling out with a magician (and his assistant) who wanted his pitch. Given that Meadows used to work the door of a nightclub – and, over the years, has had a hole bitten out of his hand, a glass pushed into his face, and a slice taken off his ear – he’s not the sort of man you want to fall out with. Meadows ended up getting arrested.

The magician, as it happened, was Eastern European. And, right now, British-born street performers are feeling a little bit outnumbered. “The silver wizard who works down on the South Bank is a Bulgarian on incapacity benefit” says Walters. “He’s raising money for a zoo back home. He’s working with his brother, and his cousin, and he’s just got his mother over. She’s a gold queen. The family must be raking it in.”

“To be honest, the Eastern Europeans are reviled by us” says Pete Forrest, a Covent Garden street performer with a particular grudge. “For a start, they haven’t got a clue about statues. They are the ones who stand there for eight hours and don’t move at all. Someone will go to take a photo of them, and they will stick their hands in front of the camera lens – or cover their face – until someone gives them money. But it’s not just that. They’re stealing our ideas, and that is much worse.”

Pete is a dog in a box. He’s wicked and irreverent, and one of the funniest performers you’ll find anywhere. Which is why there are now dogs in boxes in Trafalgar Square and on the South Bank. “I know they copied me because I’ve got a glass eye. I got it when I was working as a park keeper. When I’m a dog, I paint a make-up patch over the eye to cover it. The Eastern Europeans copied that too. Oh well. They don’t know how to perform. They just go ‘I am a dog, I am a dog’ They’re rubbish.”

The dog in a box isn’t actually a living statue – it doesn’t stand still at all. But living statues are how Pete started out. “I used to watch the statues and think to myself ‘I could do better than this’.” So he came up with the idea of Mona Lisa. He painted the canvas (“it took me about an hour”), cut out the head, and stuck his own face through the hole. He put a velvet red curtain round his body, and voila. But he was disappointed with his takings. “I was useless” he says. “I liked talking too much.”

Then he saw a performance artist who had made a model of a baby’s body, and attached it to his head. The artist then sat in a pram and interacted with the public. “It got me thinking” says Pete. “I was looking at an Argos catalogue, and I saw these baskets for carrying dogs. I thought ‘That’s what I’ll do’. So I cut the bottom out of a basket, and put my head through it. I put a couple of paws on rods, and gave it a try. People loved it. So did I, because I could talk a bit more.”

He has a great line in patter. If he’s not flirting with people – nothing bluer than Carry On, though – he’s moaning at them. “I’m this Victor Meldrew dog” says Pete. As people walk by I say ‘I thought swine flu would have got rid of more of you’. But I get away with it.” Forrest is well read. He knows all about Diogynes, the Greek philosopher who spent his life in a dog kennel. “Of course I do” says Pete. “He used to rant at people. And that’s exactly what I do now.”

Duncan Meadows, who likes to work the pitch next to Forrest, used to model for Helen Storey. While he was building his career as a bodybuilder. “As a mainstream model” says Meadow, “you’ve got to fit into a 44’ jacket. And I was just getting bigger. So I had to choose. I chose body building.” He competed for his country twice. “But I was getting close to the top of the mountain when I realised I was on the wrong mountain. All the drugs, and anal retentive crazies. So I got off the mountain.”

Meadows went off to run security at a hotel. But that didn’t fulfill him either. “I had a car, and 20 pairs of shoes, but I still wasn’t getting what I wanted” he says. “I just wasn’t interested in any of those material possessions. So I gave my shoes away. And I crashed my car. All that I had left was a pot of body paint. I put it on, with a silver sash and a pair of sunglasses – I didn’t like putting paint round my eyes – and it felt great.”

That was six years ago. Since then he’s worked as a merman at the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday. And he’s hit the gong at one of Sting’s parties. But, best of all, he likes to perform living statues in front of the public. “I started off as the statue of David. After a while, it was like ‘What do I do now?’. I looked down and heard somebody laughing. I looked up and heard someone laughing again. So I started to play around. Girls walked past and I flexed my pecs. They loved it.”

But his statues haven’t always been such a success. He created one new character after he’d seen a Japanese film called The Ring, in which a woman rises out of a well all disfigured and broken. “I painted myself black, got an Indian wig, and put in white-out lenses that turned my eyes completely white. It was a Marilyn Manson kind of thing. Which meant that you couldn’t see what I was thinking. I clicked my bones as I slowly rose up from the floor. Someone said to me ‘It’s too fucking scary’. It was just too good.”

He had the same problem with his Incredible Hulk. It took him four hours to paint his body. Well, he’s got a lot of body to paint. Then he picked out each vein in purple – the Hulk has purple DNA – and sprayed his shorts. But the Hulk was full of rage. It’s part of the deal really. “And, to be honest, that was the problem” says Meadows. “After ten minutes, the crowd were going ‘Why is he so angry?’. It was just too good again. Shit sells, really and truly.”

These days, Meadows is acting as well. And, thanks to his work at the Actors Centre, he’s been offered a variety of roles. But they do tend to be ‘of a type’. He’s up for ‘henchman’, for instance, who chops up children for burgers in Todd Carty’s new film. It follows on from the production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, where Meadows took centre stage as the executioner who chops off the head of John the Baptist. But, even as an executioner, Meadows managed to show off his body. He was naked.

The Centurion pays a lot better than the executioner and, although he doesn’t like to talk about it, Meadows once earnt £400 in a single day. “I got a £50 note from an American, who was taking photographs for about an hour” says Walters. “But on an average day I clear about £100. People say ‘It’s tax free’. But I put everything through my business account.” So does Forrest, who keeps his receipts. Well, his bus tickets. “I know I should keep the receipts for my make-up, but I never remember.”

Walters has a theory that people don’t like to put money into an empty hat. So he always throws in a £1 coin and a 10p piece of his own. “The problem I have is that people look at me and think copper. So they put copper in my hat. It’s odd. That’s why I put in silver and gold. And I get it back. The country you don’t get it back is France. And Japan. In Japan they take loads of photos and then stand, smiling, holding up a penny. I would rather they didn’t give me any money at all.”

On the streets these days there’s always health and safety to consider. Walters will touch people on the head, but not on their clothes. “I’ve got make-up on my hands, you see” he says. “And I’ve had problems with dry cleaning bills before now.” The problems don’t end there. “One woman said I scared her so much she had whiplash. Another fell over and broke her wrist. She turned out to be a top lawyer, so I gave it to Equity to look after – they do my public liability insurance. People these days will try anything to make a quick buck.”

But the biggest bone of contention for living statues is rudeness. “If you go abroad, they’re more into street performers” says Walters. “But in this country you still get people shouting ‘Get a job’. They think it’s like begging. It’s not. You are offering the people something, and they are tipping you. But it can be quite dispiriting.” Like all the drunks, pouring past at closing time. Especially when you’re a dog in a box. “I’m always getting blokes pretending to put their willies in my mouth” says Forrest. “They’re lucky I don’t bite them off.”



		The Art of not Falling Over His outfit was home-made. And – apart from his oversized white gloves – you would never have guessed he was Mickey Mouse. But my daughter wanted to see him wave. So she threw a few coins into his hat. ‘Mickey’, however, wanted a few coins more. I told him he was treading on children’s dreams, but he just stood there. My wife said that if I poked my finger through his big fat papier mache head I would tread on a few more children’s dreams, so we left. And had the set lunch at Pizza Express. It was my first encounter with a ‘living statue’ – a street performer who stands around for a living. And there’s a world of living statuery to choose from. I’ve seen a chameleon on a bike, a blue guitarist and a policeman in a tutu. And I’ve seen a silver man who stands with his legs really far apart. It’s difficult to see “not falling over” as any kind of art, but it pays the bills. And, as any performer will tell you, paying the bills is an art in itself. Todays living statues are actually part of a noble and historic tradition that dates back to the tableaux vivants – or living pictures – of the early medieval period. In the tableaux, costumed actors would create a scene by remaining silent and motionless, as if they were in a picture. Over time, actors took the tableaux out onto the streets. It’s now such a profitable business that there are ‘living statues’ in every city round the world. The traditionalists in the living statues world still choose to look like statues. And they specialise in stone, metal, glass or wood. But they have a problem. If they are too convincing as statues, passers-by just pass them by. And their takings suffer. So, these days, they move. If someone puts a few coins in their hat, they will blow a kiss, do a dance, hand over a flower – anything, as long as it attracts a bit of a crowd. I just wish someone had told ‘Mickey’. Matt Walters first decided to become a living statue after walking through the Fontainebleau gardens in Paris. “I saw hundreds of people gathered round this statue of a beautiful girl” he says. “When I leant forward to touch it, it grabbed me and I made a complete arse of myself. Every time it grabbed a different person, the crowd got bigger and bigger. I thought ‘That’s for me’.” He decided he would create a living statue of a chimney sweep. A convincing look is vital. Which is why Walters decided against gold and silver. “You don’t get gold or silver statues in real life” he says. “You get pewter. That’s what cuts it – coming up with something believable.” He applies his base of black make-up, with bronze highlighting, by using plastic spray bottles. “Jif bottles are great” he says, “but the paint clogs up the nozzle eventually.” Walters does all the make-up himself. Every inch, down to the small of his back. And then comes the standing still. Which isn’t as easy as it looks. For a start, it can go on for a considerable length of time. It’s taxing on the body, and a wibble or a wobble can ruin your performance. Walters, whose statue always pulls a crowd, can go an hour without blinking. It helps that he’s a marathon runner and can drop his heart rate down to 24. “It’s useful” says Walters. “As a living statue, you need to make sure people can’t see you breathe.” Chris Clarkson is one of the best living statues in the business. In fact, Clarkson represented Britain at this year’s World Statue Championships in the Netherlands. He got the idea for his Greek statue with pouring water from a local garden centre. “At the Championships” says Clarkson, “two kids walked up to me wanting to be splashed. I got them a few times and built up a nice crowd of 50 or so people. But then their Dad walked up to collect them….” At this point, it’s worth pointing out that living statues can’t move their eyes. They are, after all, statues. So, they wear sunglasses (which the purists think of as cheating) or they focus on a fixed point until it’s time to change position. All they can see clearly is what they’re focussed on – everything else is peripheral. “Many a time I’ve thought a short 30-year-old was a 10-year-old, and vice versa” says Clarkson. Which explains his confusion over the ‘Dad’. “Anyway” he says, “I reckoned I could get a roar from the audience if I splashed the Dad as well as the kids” says Clarkson. “So I turned around on my plinth and poured (yes, poured) water all over him. However, as I rotated, I saw him clearly. He wasn’t the boys’ Dad – he was a policeman. For a brief moment I thought I was going to end up in a Dutch prison, but fortunately he laughed – after the shock of the cold water had sunk in. The audience loved it and I made a small fortune in Euros.” There are signposts around Covent Garden in London that say ‘No Busking’. But the buskers don’t pay any attention. Nor do the police, who patrol the area in search of pickpockets. Covent Garden is where the world’s leading exponents of the living statue art come to work, but Westminster Council allow only five unofficial pitches – on James Street – so the competition is intense. At the weekend, artists arrive at 4am. And things can get nasty. Duncan Meadows, who has been doing his ‘Centurion’ statue in Covent Garden for six years, had a falling out with a magician (and his assistant) who wanted his pitch. Given that Meadows used to work the door of a nightclub – and, over the years, has had a hole bitten out of his hand, a glass pushed into his face, and a slice taken off his ear – he’s not the sort of man you want to fall out with. Meadows ended up getting arrested. The magician, as it happened, was Eastern European. And, right now, British-born street performers are feeling a little bit outnumbered. “The silver wizard who works down on the South Bank is a Bulgarian on incapacity benefit” says Walters. “He’s raising money for a zoo back home. He’s working with his brother, and his cousin, and he’s just got his mother over. She’s a gold queen. The family must be raking it in.” “To be honest, the Eastern Europeans are reviled by us” says Pete Forrest, a Covent Garden street performer with a particular grudge. “For a start, they haven’t got a clue about statues. They are the ones who stand there for eight hours and don’t move at all. Someone will go to take a photo of them, and they will stick their hands in front of the camera lens – or cover their face – until someone gives them money. But it’s not just that. They’re stealing our ideas, and that is much worse.” Pete is a dog in a box. He’s wicked and irreverent, and one of the funniest performers you’ll find anywhere. Which is why there are now dogs in boxes in Trafalgar Square and on the South Bank. “I know they copied me because I’ve got a glass eye. I got it when I was working as a park keeper. When I’m a dog, I paint a make-up patch over the eye to cover it. The Eastern Europeans copied that too. Oh well. They don’t know how to perform. They just go ‘I am a dog, I am a dog’ They’re rubbish.” The dog in a box isn’t actually a living statue – it doesn’t stand still at all. But living statues are how Pete started out. “I used to watch the statues and think to myself ‘I could do better than this’.” So he came up with the idea of Mona Lisa. He painted the canvas (“it took me about an hour”), cut out the head, and stuck his own face through the hole. He put a velvet red curtain round his body, and voila. But he was disappointed with his takings. “I was useless” he says. “I liked talking too much.” Then he saw a performance artist who had made a model of a baby’s body, and attached it to his head. The artist then sat in a pram and interacted with the public. “It got me thinking” says Pete. “I was looking at an Argos catalogue, and I saw these baskets for carrying dogs. I thought ‘That’s what I’ll do’. So I cut the bottom out of a basket, and put my head through it. I put a couple of paws on rods, and gave it a try. People loved it. So did I, because I could talk a bit more.” He has a great line in patter. If he’s not flirting with people – nothing bluer than Carry On, though – he’s moaning at them. “I’m this Victor Meldrew dog” says Pete. As people walk by I say ‘I thought swine flu would have got rid of more of you’. But I get away with it.” Forrest is well read. He knows all about Diogynes, the Greek philosopher who spent his life in a dog kennel. “Of course I do” says Pete. “He used to rant at people. And that’s exactly what I do now.” Duncan Meadows, who likes to work the pitch next to Forrest, used to model for Helen Storey. While he was building his career as a bodybuilder. “As a mainstream model” says Meadow, “you’ve got to fit into a 44’ jacket. And I was just getting bigger. So I had to choose. I chose body building.” He competed for his country twice. “But I was getting close to the top of the mountain when I realised I was on the wrong mountain. All the drugs, and anal retentive crazies. So I got off the mountain.” Meadows went off to run security at a hotel. But that didn’t fulfill him either. “I had a car, and 20 pairs of shoes, but I still wasn’t getting what I wanted” he says. “I just wasn’t interested in any of those material possessions. So I gave my shoes away. And I crashed my car. All that I had left was a pot of body paint. I put it on, with a silver sash and a pair of sunglasses – I didn’t like putting paint round my eyes – and it felt great.” That was six years ago. Since then he’s worked as a merman at the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday. And he’s hit the gong at one of Sting’s parties. But, best of all, he likes to perform living statues in front of the public. “I started off as the statue of David. After a while, it was like ‘What do I do now?’. I looked down and heard somebody laughing. I looked up and heard someone laughing again. So I started to play around. Girls walked past and I flexed my pecs. They loved it.” But his statues haven’t always been such a success. He created one new character after he’d seen a Japanese film called The Ring, in which a woman rises out of a well all disfigured and broken. “I painted myself black, got an Indian wig, and put in white-out lenses that turned my eyes completely white. It was a Marilyn Manson kind of thing. Which meant that you couldn’t see what I was thinking. I clicked my bones as I slowly rose up from the floor. Someone said to me ‘It’s too fucking scary’. It was just too good.” He had the same problem with his Incredible Hulk. It took him four hours to paint his body. Well, he’s got a lot of body to paint. Then he picked out each vein in purple – the Hulk has purple DNA – and sprayed his shorts. But the Hulk was full of rage. It’s part of the deal really. “And, to be honest, that was the problem” says Meadows. “After ten minutes, the crowd were going ‘Why is he so angry?’. It was just too good again. Shit sells, really and truly.” These days, Meadows is acting as well. And, thanks to his work at the Actors Centre, he’s been offered a variety of roles. But they do tend to be ‘of a type’. He’s up for ‘henchman’, for instance, who chops up children for burgers in Todd Carty’s new film. It follows on from the production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, where Meadows took centre stage as the executioner who chops off the head of John the Baptist. But, even as an executioner, Meadows managed to show off his body. He was naked. The Centurion pays a lot better than the executioner and, although he doesn’t like to talk about it, Meadows once earnt £400 in a single day. “I got a £50 note from an American, who was taking photographs for about an hour” says Walters. “But on an average day I clear about £100. People say ‘It’s tax free’. But I put everything through my business account.” So does Forrest, who keeps his receipts. Well, his bus tickets. “I know I should keep the receipts for my make-up, but I never remember.” Walters has a theory that people don’t like to put money into an empty hat. So he always throws in a £1 coin and a 10p piece of his own. “The problem I have is that people look at me and think copper. So they put copper in my hat. It’s odd. That’s why I put in silver and gold. And I get it back. The country you don’t get it back is France. And Japan. In Japan they take loads of photos and then stand, smiling, holding up a penny. I would rather they didn’t give me any money at all.” On the streets these days there’s always health and safety to consider. Walters will touch people on the head, but not on their clothes. “I’ve got make-up on my hands, you see” he says. “And I’ve had problems with dry cleaning bills before now.” The problems don’t end there. “One woman said I scared her so much she had whiplash. Another fell over and broke her wrist. She turned out to be a top lawyer, so I gave it to Equity to look after – they do my public liability insurance. People these days will try anything to make a quick buck.” But the biggest bone of contention for living statues is rudeness. “If you go abroad, they’re more into street performers” says Walters. “But in this country you still get people shouting ‘Get a job’. They think it’s like begging. It’s not. You are offering the people something, and they are tipping you. But it can be quite dispiriting.” Like all the drunks, pouring past at closing time. Especially when you’re a dog in a box. “I’m always getting blokes pretending to put their willies in my mouth” says Forrest. “They’re lucky I don’t bite them off.”

		© Richard Johnson 2000 - 2009