On the trail of Banksy in Weston-super-Mare

Weston-super-Mare. Home of cheap arcades, underused deck chairs, overindulgent tourists and salt-of-the-earth old men dragging donkeys around wet sand flats in front of the great brown mess of the Severn Estuary.

And now also, if the rumours are to be believed, the most famous artist of a generation: Banksy.

God knows how, but some super sharp passer-by apparently snapped a pic of a little-known woman reported to be Banksy’s manager – whose name coincidentally appears on the credits to Exit Through the Gift Shop – outside the long-derelict Tropicana this week.

The picture, alongside some other partially obscured snaps of the supposed Dismaland apocalyptic theme park, appeared on the Mail Online, of all places, with the question now on everybody’s lips: is this a secret Banksy exhibition?

The whole thing stinks of a massive leak, if you ask me, which has succeeded in whipping up the kind of media frenzy where someone’s going to get hurt sooner or later.

It’s also built an almighty buzz in this most quintessentially English of holiday resorts where I’m on the trail of Banksy himself, looking for a clue. Something. Anything.

To aid me I’m employing all the major sleuthing tricks they teach at Harlow journalism college (where Piers Morgan, no less, is one of the many famous alumni), except phone hacking.

1. Scour social media

Is Banksy building a twisted version of Disneyland? Let’s hope so #Dismaland @thereaIbanksy http://t.co/gQLF7EtdtS pic.twitter.com/sqPreMFaps

— Alice Davis (@AliceDavisAM) August 18, 2015

The journey starts on Twitter, of course, on the train down from Temple Meads.

“Is Banksy building a twisted version of Disneyland?” Asks Alice Davis.

Meanwhile, the Daily Beast reports: “Banksy’s sinister Disney-trolling park reportedly opening.”

“The Banksy twist? – the three hour queue to get in being the highlight of course!” quips Cod Steaks.

2. Find the people in the know

On the beach I make a beeline for those old men with the donkeys I was talking about.

“What’s Banksy?” is the response. But I learn from Terry Vincent, 71, that movement on the site has been stepped up considerably in the last few weeks.

At the council’s own beach-side snack stall I ask what’s going on, using the purchase of a packet of ready salted crisps as my foot in the door.

The lady behind the counter is a gold mine. The people on site are American, from LA apparently.

“It’s big. It’s going to put Weston on the map,” she says. “Thousands will come.”

I ask how she knows. “Because they said so,” she says, adding that she moonlights at a hotel where they are staying. Further questions prove fruitless. Plus, the guy behind me wants his Mars Bar.

3. Sleuth around the site

If Banksy and his crew are in town, they are here under the guise of a film company called Grey Fox Productions, GFP for short on some of the signs at the crew parking outside the Tropicana.

If you mix around some of the letters you can make “poor secret” (as long as you use the same “e” twice), I figure out, wondering if it’s an elaborate a code.

I walk over to the staff entrance and ask the security guard: “So, when’s this Banksy exhibition opening then?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Isn’t he doing an exhibition here?”

“If he was, I’m sure I would have been told about it.”

Two vans full of beer kegs arrive and are quickly unloaded through the side door. Odd, for a film production to need all that beer. One hell of a wrap party.

4. Look in the bins

Sleuthing all the way around the Tropicana reveals little more than a few old dears in their swimsuits sitting in the shade of the 15ft wall.

But on the other side of the crew car park is a skip, full of empty boxes – a journo’s dream.

And what’s this? An empty box for Wagner PaintCrew, only a super fast spray paint gun. Useful if you’re a graffiti artist.

5. Get a good vantage point

From the outside of the Tropicana, you can only really see the tip of a Disneyland-esque castle, some sort of twisted lorry installation and a horse made from scaffold poles.

But a chance arises as a Landrover pulls up at the covered gates, which will need to open to let it in. From the top of a nearby bandstand – and after a 10-minute stand-off with security guards who have spotted me – I get the shortest of glimpses into the site before a covering truck pulls up to block my view.

My pictures reveal a cement mixer and a old-style merry-go-round. A passer-by below is laughing at me. “It’s definitely Banksy,” he says. “I saw it on Facebook.”

He’s one of the many people coming and going who are snapping pictures of what they can from outside the Tropicana, where rumour is rife.

“There must be some basis to it,” says Ben Allen, 36, visiting with his father for the day. “This kind of thing doesn’t just come out of no-where,” he adds, stepping down from the beach wall where he has been taking pictures.

You get the feeling tight-lipped security are getting the better of everyone outside the Tropicana. So I head for the highest point on the seafront, the ferris wheel.

Pictures from the top of the ride reveal the same, but from slightly further away.

6. Talk to other members of the press

Supposed Banksy show – just who is Grey Fox Productions? pic.twitter.com/pbH5AlgcaM

— steven morris (@stevenmorris20) August 18, 2015

The press have been buzzing around the Tropicana for the last two days now. Fellow sleuths are difficult to detect (although I know Steven Morris from the Guardian has been skulking), but local cameramen have spent the day in the sun.

Not as fun as it sounds when security guards keep standing in the way of shot.

“It’s Banksy, not f*cking Prince Charles,” says the unnamed cameraman from a popular public service broadcaster.

I ask the man from a rival local TV news outlet whether he’s convinced it’s Banksy. “I couldn’t give a f*ck,” he says, politely. “If it is, we will be back on Thursday doing shots of the queues.”

A more helpful journalist informs me there is a strictly embargoed, press, invite-only event on Thursday at the Tropicana. He heard it from the car park attendant though.

Back at the office I get on the phone. But the entire North Somerset Council press office is in a meeting – hiding, presumably, from the world’s media.

“There’s nothing they will be able to tell you,” a customer services operator says with the advice to try calling back later.

When I finally get through, Katie says I will have to go through a woman who happens to already be in my address book, under “Banksy – PR”.

See Bristol24/7’s exclusive footage of Dismaland at night.