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Christopher Walken has destroyed a work of Banksy, the most elusive and enigmatic artist of the last decades. Although it may be more correct to say that the person who has done it is the character that the actor plays in the series ‘The Outlaws’. The scene is part of an episode of BBC television fiction, but the artwork was as real as life itself.
The series, created and directed by the British Stephen Merchant, contributor to Ricky Gervais and architect of ‘The Office’, tells the misadventures of a group of very peculiar criminals who must clean and renovate an abandoned building in Bristol as part of the community services to which they have been sentenced.
Apparently, the work was a ‘commission’: Banksy, who hails from that British city (also Merchant), had painted graffiti for the series, starring a rat and in which his name can be read. This has been recognized, given the commotion generated by the images of Walken, those responsible for television fiction.
And it is that, in the last episode of ‘The Outlaws’, which the BBC broadcast on November 10, Frank, the character played by the American interpreter, erases several graffiti from the walls of the aforementioned building of Bristol. Arriving at the work of Banksy, Frank asks the person in charge of his probation if he should delete that one too, and she, distracted, explains that all the graffiti in the building must be cleaned. The episode, which ends the series, ends with Walken ‘destroying’ Banksy’s work.
In case there was any doubt about the veracity of the facts, halfway between fiction and reality, a spokesperson for the series, quoted by
‘The Guardian’, made it clear: «We can confirm that the artwork at the end of ‘The Outlaws‘ was a Banksy original, and what Christopher Walken he painted on it during the filming of that scene and destroyed it.
