HE’S a Turner Prize-winning artist – but also a cross-dressing transvestite with a wicked sense of humour.

Now, following York’s triumph in a national vote, Grayson Perry will be coming to the city in May, with his beloved teddy bear Alan Measles in tow, for a unique Museums at Night event at the Yorkshire Museum.

Exactly what he will be doing on the evening of Thursday, May 15, remains a little unclear – but it will involve a game of hide and seek with bears from the York Museums’ Trust’s collection, including a six-foot-tall taxidermy bear, a First World War bear, and ceramic bears from York Art Gallery. The mind boggles. But it promises to be great fun.

It is all the better for the fact that York had to campaign long and hard against three London museums for the honour of hosting the event.

We won hands down in the end. “We had nearly 5,500 votes – the most any museum has ever got in the history of the Museums at Night competition,” said Gaby Lees, the York Museums’ Trust’s assistant curator of art learning.

So that’s one in the eye for London, then – and a real coup for York and the north.

Roll on May 15.