Anonymous artist 'Impro' adds urinal to Sonning Bridge

A porcelain urinal has been installed on Sonning Bridge by anonymous artist ‘Impro’.

The 'lifelike' piece appeared several weeks ago and has gone largely unnoticed by locals even though it is waterside and brilliant white.

Sonning Bridge is one of the satirical artist's most favoured locations, leaving onlookers baffled as to how the strange objects appear on one the bridge's pillars, and just above water level.

Previously, Impro has impressed with their giant ‘Google pin’ sculpture on Hare Hatch roundabout, a life-sized, wooden door on Sonning Bridge and an ‘emergency floodline’ dial-up telephone which was glued to the bricks of the bridge sometime later.

In 2021 Impro also installed a golden chicken sculpture, dedicating it to Sonning’s then most-famous resident, Uri Gellar. ‘Remembering Uri Gellar, the golden cock’ it read.

Last Christmas, art turned seasonally political, when Impro poked fun at Royal Mail with several 'fake post boxes' popping-up around Sonning, one showing ‘Santa’ throwing himself into the letterbox shouting: ‘Bah!’

This time, though, could the message being portrayed by Sonning’s answer to ‘Banksy’ be their most serious yet?

The suggestion of a flushing toilet accessory with a pipe leading directly into the River Thames could lead us to believe that Impro is calling for better treatment of our rivers.

In recent years, fines reaching millions of pounds have been levied at the nation’s water companies for allowing untreated sewerage to seep into our rivers.

Thames Water, whose headquarters is just short of four miles from Sonning Bridge, was fined £3.3m on July 4, 2023, for discharging millions of litres of undiluted sewage into two rivers in 2017 where more than 1,400 fish were killed.

“I am saddened by the polluting of the river but if I can combine this concern with a bit of schoolboy lavatorial humour then so much the better,” the anonymous artist told the Advertiser.