Storm-troopers invade Manchester

“Luke, I am your father. And I have joined Fathers For Justice so I can join Batman protesting on the window-ledges of Parliament.”

Something like that.

Or rather not: this is more serious.

There are some people it seems who so love fictional worlds they want to climb inside them. This is increasingly the case...a phenomena of modern life is the desire to exist vicariously. We're living in the Avatar Age: where second lives seem sharper, clearer defined than the humdrum slog of the daily grind.

Of course the fiction has to be of the right sort, Star Trek, the Twilight Saga...and of course Star Wars. These tend to be based in fantastic worlds, where love and bravery is set against epoch-making action.

The places that Princess Leia visits for instance are very different from Tesco. It takes a special kind of person to make the weekly supermarket shop into a epic fight against good and evil. “So baked beans, you think you can dominate this aisle do you? Well I give you spaghetti hoops and ravioli in sauce.” Not really.

In the same way Confidential doubts whether there are groups of people who dress as Shameless characters and re-enact key scenes. It's more heroic to strike a Han Solo pose rather than a Frank Gallagher one, it makes you more special to be walking through the mushroom meadows of Tatooine rather than an east Manchester council estate.

So we were sent these pics from Rachel Greenwood. She's been down over the weekend to the Generation Pop Gallery on New York Street, underneath City Tower in Piccadilly. The gallery's hosting ‘The Art of Star Wars’ exhibition and it was having guests. You can see them on this page: people dressed in character viewing their characters. They must have felt like right cults. But we love their enthusiasm and the fun they must have brought as they invaded Manchester.

And if 'fantasy art' is your bag, then the gallery's got top class gear on offer. It's all apparently been drawn by official Star Wars' artists including Chris Wahl. Who? Why, the 'outstanding illustrator who also worked on movies such as Bolt, Shrek 2, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and many more'.

Nip along if you fancy a gandar: bore the staff by asking, “can we move these pictures over here, I think they'd look better on the Dark Side.”

'The Art of Star Wars' runs until 20 February 2010 at Generation Pop Art, E3 New York Street, City Tower, City. Entry is free.