Banksy: The Room in the Elephant – how art lost one man his home

"THIS LOOKS A BIT LIKE AN ELEPHANT." That slogan, in black block capitals, appeared on a water tank in Los Angeles in February 2011, courtesy of the surreptitious street artist Banksy. He had a point, too: it did look a bit like an elephant.

To one man, however, it looked like home. As an investigation by the Independent unveiled, Tachowa Covington, a long-term vagrant and former street performer, had been living inside the disused tank for seven years – though some reports say he had moved on. Soon after Banksy's art work appeared on its exterior, turning a hillside blind spot into a tourist hot spot, the tank was bought by a conglomerate called Mint Currency and, in turn, removed from the site. Covington, who hadn't even heard of Banksy before the incident, lost the space he had once called home. (In an interview last year, he said he subsequently received financial help from the artist.)

For the playwright Tom Wainwright, Covington had lost more than that. "There was something of a land-grab on Tachowa's story," he explains. "Quite a few articles were written, because Banksy's captured the imagination on a global scale. Here's a guy who doesn't know who Banksy is, who's made something for himself and is perfectly happy. Then, not only does his home get taken away, everyone wants to know his story. What's anybody giving this guy? What does he get out of this?"

Wainwright's play shows Covington, played by former EastEnders actor Gary Beadle, breaking back into the tank in a secure warehouse armed with a video camera to record his version of events for broadcast via YouTube.

The play's first incarnation was at Oran Mor in 2012. That version was mostly the product of Wainwright's imagination. "There are only two things we can say for definite: Banksy definitely wrote on the side of this water tank and Covington had his home taken away from him."

Hang on, though: Wainwright telling Covington's story is as much an appropriation as a journalist recounting events, isn't it? It's a point both playwright and play are attuned to. "There's a faultline running through the play," admits Wainwright. The text has grown more complex since its first outing, following direct communication with Covington and an approach that inserts the storytellers into the story. "Nobody's interesting in you baring your guilt publicly," Wainwright continues, "That's not interesting. But finding a way to articulate that, however well intentioned we are and however much consent we have from Tachowa, we are still part of that grab on him and his story. That's unavoidable." By the time the Banksy piece appeared, there was already footage of Covington on YouTube, courtesy of film-maker Hal Samples, who was shooting a documentary about his life. That film, Something from Nothing, makes a double-bill with Wainwright's play this month.

Banksy, who had prior form with elephants in the room, might well have been making a sharper point about Los Angeles' 40,000-strong homeless population. But if so, wasn't he appropriating Covington himself into an artwork? "That's classic Banksy," says Wainwright. "Positively encouraging people to overthink things. Just at the point where you refuse to over-analyse, that he's just pointing out a tank that looks like an elephant, you think maybe I should. You can't win. It's a really playful, interesting piece of art."