THE MISSION: LEARNING TO BE A STATUE

With a latex hairpiece and much body paint, Will Smith becomes a human statue in Covent Garden. The experience is unexpectedly intoxicating ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer 2009

I broke two personal records during my day as a human statue. One, the award for Longest Time Spent Standing on a Box, I expected. The other, Longest Time Spent Talking to a Man in a Toilet, I did not.

I spent two hours getting ready in a London convenience with a professional human statue, Ed Johnson. Worryingly, we got zero reaction from the cleaners and other users of the toilet. Would I also be ignored once I hit the street? Or would that be a plus? How do you judge a good gig as a human statue? A pigeon landing on your head? Someone trying to chisel you?

My statue was “The Bronze Butler”. First I put on a pair of starched suit trousers. At that point I was just a man in slightly odd trousers. Then came a black latex hairpiece. This made me look like a robot from a ponderous 1970s film about the meaning of human identity. I then covered my face, neck and hands—including the inside of my nose, lips and ears—with black body-paint. I now looked like a character called “Canni Ball” from a never-rerun 1970s sketch-show. But once I’d smeared myself with dabs of bronze paint, I looked like an 1870s town-square statue. This was fun.

I got nervous again when Ed told me about the range of abuse human statues sometimes have to deal with: schoolchildren trying to knock you over, men screaming in fury at your lack of professional ambition, women grabbing your balls and buttocks. And then there are the other statues. There are five “official” pitches on James Street in Covent Garden, agreed on by the statues and the council, and fists can fly over occupation rights. Although apparently James Street isn’t as bad as the South Bank, where—and forgive me if this sounds like a spoof Daily Mail headline—there has been tension due to an influx of Polish human statues.

Luckily I was the first statue to arrive, on a quiet Monday lunchtime, so I put my tin and box on the prime pitch and began doing nothing. First I adopted one of the poses Ed suggested—hands touching my waist to stop them shaking, and eyes cast down so it would be harder for people to see me blink. Almost instantly a crowd gathered. But within minutes I started to feel a pain in my calves and neck. I was holding myself too rigidly, and had hours ahead of me. I couldn’t keep the pose, but I couldn’t start slouching, either.

Luckily someone came and threw some money in the tin. I made a little bow, and rearranged my weight so I wasn’t leaning forward so much. Crucially, my bow got a collective intake of breath. Children started paying for multiple bows, some giggling, some fearful, running away as quickly as they could. Holding the attention of a group of people through minimal movement was quite intoxicating. I had them hanging on my every blink. I started to expand my repertoire: hand in pocket, hand on hip, hand extended, I was on fire.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the human-statue equivalent of a shark’s fin breaking the water. A group of teenagers. One of them approached. Cocky. The sort that wouldn’t blush when he spoke to girls. I hated him on half-sight. But he just wanted a hug—with which I obliged him.

Overall, the crowds were delightful. One woman even held up a tissue to wipe my dripping nose for me, then dropped £1 in my tin. Essentially, a woman paid to wipe my nose.

I found it surprisingly relaxing, like a form of meditation. Though my eyes were focused on paving, I was fully aware of all those around me and could tune into their conversation. An American man asked: “Why are you taking a photo of that statue?”, and, when told that I was in fact a person, exclaimed: “Wow, that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!” Since it was likely he travelled here on a plane, I thought this a slight overstatement. If I’d shown him my iPhone, he’d probably have had a heart attack.

After a couple of hours I got down off my box, feeling utterly elated. As for what you’re dying to know: I earned £45.51 and one Israeli shekel. (And I’m sure that was an honest mistake: it looked just like a 5p.) The only downside was having to clean myself up—it didn’t seem advisable to travel home across London with a blacked-up face, so I spent an hour in a public toilet hanging over a sink with a packet of baby wipes. Another record smashed.

Picture credit: David Yeo

(Will Smith is a comic, writer and actor. He has four lines in "In the Loop", so he can legitimately say he has made a film with James Gandolfini. Previous missions include falconry, ice-sculpting and learning to play bridge.)