Art Attack star backs our play campaign

Buy photos » Neil Buchanan. s

THE STAR of TV’s Art Attack, Neil Buchanan, has spoken to The Standard about his new ‘Back Street Games’ collection of paintings, which he is bringing to Rubery.

The five quirky, and often cheeky, pictures will be on show at Jamie Leigh Fine Art, 112 New Road, throughout the summer and Neil will be making a personal appearance in the gallery to launch the collection between 12midday and 2pm tomorrow (Saturday).

Among the mixed media pictures, done in acrylic paint and ink pen, are: ‘Didn’t Wanna Win Anyway,’ ‘The High Jump Bunk’, ‘The Mad Dash’, ‘The Hurtles’ and ‘On Your Marks, Get Set ... CHEAT!’.

He said: “As an artist, I thought about what the Olympics meant.

“The suits are talking about a lasting legacy for all of the country, but I am always very sceptical when people talk like that.”

He added he felt the Olympics were very much London-centric and questioned, apart from the torch relay, what the rest of the UK would get out of it.

But he said: “If they do inspire more young people to get into sport then that’s great.”

He described his Back Street Games pictures as ‘a group of scallies, doing what they did in alleys’ and said the works were inspired by games he used to play as a child.

“I still go back to my mum’s and take my own kids.

“I show them the same cracks that are still there in the pavements that we used to map out our goal lines and penalty areas and tell my kids about how we used to play.

“Back then, there were no computers - your back alley was your stadium.”

He spoke of how he and his friends used to commentate out loud, whilst playing football, using street lamps for goal posts.

“I’ve tried to get across that childhood invention and creativity through my Back Street Games.”

Neil also backed our ‘Let’s Get Bromsgrove Playing’ campaign which is aimed at getting children playing more outdoors and trying their hand at traditional games.

We started it after shocking statistics from Play England showed more than a quarter of youngsters in the West Midlands had never built a den and over a third had never climbed a tree.

He said: “I think that’s awesome - children are not exposed to these games anymore and if we are not careful, they are going to be lost forever.

“They need to be archived somewhere, but they also need to be passed on.

“What we need to do, as parents, is introduce the games to them and play them with them, even if some of them have to be reinvented.

“Then they will pick up the mantle and go with it. “

He said it was a children’s world today and computers were not going to go away.

He said they could be good for children, if used in the right way, for example to channel their creativity.

But, he also said youngsters could spend more time away from them if they were just shown how.

For more on the Back Street Games collection, call 0121 422 2503 or visit www.jamieleighfineart.co.uk

For more on our Let’s Get Bromsgrove Playing Campaign, visit www.facebook.com/playinbromsgrove.

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