Mat is a disabled actor/musician/writer, who also does Live Art, TV presenting, Cabaret, even some modelling… he is multi disciplinary, though it was never intended. He is both a disabled artist, and a disability artist, in that, he simultaneously seeks a mainstream acting career as any non disabled actor might do, but all his self produced work deals with the social construct that is disability in one way or another; His poetry/rap C.D.’s are direct takes on disability, attempting to simultaneously connect with disabled listeners ( and their friends etc), and wake up non thinkers to the social apartheid he experiences daily. His play ‘ Sealboy:Freak’ is a discussion of perceptions of disabled performers through history, as does his documentary ‘ Born Freak'( C4,2002). His screenplays all have a disabled character(s) central to the story, though not necessarily a ‘disability’ story. Mat does as much mainstream work as possible to include himself as a disabled person in a world where the tele-visual image is GOD, and therefore creates our reality, because he thinks it’s vital that disabled people are seen as part of that ‘included-in-Society’ reality, and not as a separate entity. That’s why he was prepared to compromise some of his own politics to be involved in ‘ Freak Out'( C4,2000), which is an irreverent light entertainment program taking Disability to the ‘ lads ‘ TV market, and an intentional antidote to the previous image of disabled people on TV as politically homogonous, socially aware, issue obsessed separatists. Mat plans to continue his work as a mainstream actor and always having an agenda of disability inclusion in his own works. It’s an exciting time for this disabled arts practitioner.
Mat has short arms as a result of Thalidomide.