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Jun152011
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Jun152011
Wednesday
Jun152011
Wednesday
Jun152011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 09:18AM http://thelatest.co.uk/7/mad-matt-8
http://thelatest.co.uk/7/mad-matt-rises-to-the-challenge
http://thelatest.co.uk/7/mad-matt-pom-pom-madness
Matt Whistler creates a new art movement in his challenge set by Latest 7 reader Sally Lloyd
With one event dominating everyone’s minds last Bank Holiday weekend [29 April–2 May], Matt thought it was definitely worth getting involved.
No, he didn’t crash the Royal Wedding – he put on his own artist’s open house ahead of the Brighton Festival.
But to make this a real challenge, Sally Lloyd from Brighton asked Matt to organise his open house within 24 hours, and start a new art movement within the exhibition.
With little time to prepare or find stray artists not already ‘housed’ ahead of the festival, Matt had to call on all his persuasive powers.
He managed to round up three artists to join the new movement: Jasper Carrott look-a-like Brash, sheep-painter Toby and elusive street-artist Cassette Lord.
With the cast assembled, Matt set about setting up his exhibition which he said: “Ranged from green house panels to montage scenes in Central Park, Manhattan, to a ‘framed frame’ that had the back of an expensive frame displayed inside a cheaper one.”
Seeking to make a good impression Matt came as ‘Totally Absurd Man’ in an all-in-one blue jumpsuit and re-enacted crime scenes from his pictures outside the open house.
“I lay on the floor while my sidekick detective wrapped me in masking tape though one girl didn’t understand the artistic meaning and thought I was an escaped onion from Taj,” Matt says.
As the crowds packed in, Matt waited to reveal his biggest surprise – the new art movement.
“As part of the elaborate unveil, Brash and I tried to juggle eggs with boxing gloves on. There was an air of silence and tension filled the room, until we both missed and the eggs splattered across the floor,” Matt recalled.
At the point of impact Matt announced the new art movement: Do-Da. He says the name was inspired by the surrealist art movement Dada, an anti-war art revolution that swept the globe between the World Wars.
Dada set out to ridicule what participants considered to be the meaninglessness of the modern world; Do-Da has less supercilious goals, according to Matt: “Do-Da aims to encourage hippies to jump out of bed and go to the shop through sheer excitement. If you’re ‘do-Da’ and you see a hippy, you have to do 10 squat thrusts while chanting ‘Do-Da’ on each motion in an effort to convert them.
Do-Da is open to everyone, as long as they follow Matt’s initiation activity: “Every other Tuesday you have to walk into a shop and sing ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ to sublimely transmit the Do-Da message before walking away with the satisfaction that you’ve added excitement to everyone’s day.”
To join Do-Da or suggest Matt’s next challenge go to www.facebook.com/latest7
or www.facebook.com/mattwhistler brighton
Words: Richard Hook
Matt Whistler finds peas on earth with EastEnders star Carol Harrison
Most challenges give Matt time to ponder “sillyphosically” about the best way to attempt them, but some are very, very specific. Rick Wood asked Matt: “To do a comedy fall… holding a plastic box filled with water and a thousand peas… next to a wheelie bin… with an actress standing alongside it.”
Matt’s main worry was about wasting the peas: “I don’t like wasting food, so the thought of dropping 1,000 peas as I tumbled to the floor seemed very uneconomical. But then the thought of having 1,000 peas in my veggie pie was too pea-domineering. So, to save my carrots from being swamped, I started to load up the box.”
The next concern was whether the peas would last until the stunt. As Matt wheeled out his bin ready for the fall, he noticed a group of seagulls loitering around, looking menacing:“When I counted the peas out – to 950 – I looked up and could see a gull in close proximity, staring into my soul. Don’t trust those seagulls – they’re dangerous beasts!”
As former EastEnders star Carol Harrison arrived to fulfil the “actress” requirement of the task, Matt lifted the box, now heavy with water and peas, into position.
“With everything set in place, I walked towards my bin on the seafront, as a council litter-picker stopped in his tracks to watch, and Carol fixed her vision on my approach,” Matt recalls. “As I executed the fall, everything felt like a slow-motion accident.
“I hadn’t included tipping the water and peas over my head in the challenge, so it came as quite a shock when I began to become engaged in some lumpy, bumpy pea-intimacy.”
The reactions from Carol and the onlooking council cleaner were priceless: “As the litter guy looked down at me, I could see the millions of expletives flashing through his brain. I walked off in my disgusting state, and put my silver hat on to deflect the sun’s rays as more and more green slime trickled down my face. Those peas get everywhere.”
Not only had Matt completed the challenge, but he’d even appeased the angry-looking seagulls: “I looked over at the afore-mentioned bird of prey, and saw him giving his mates the all-clear to start swooping into pea-grabbing action.”
Set Matt’s next record-breaking challenge at: www.facebook.com/latest7
or www.facebook.com/mattwhistlerbrighton
Words: Richard Hook
Matt Whistler travels 13 miles through the night at great speeds of 6mph. Did you see him?
When Matt first heard this week’s challenge, from Tracy Reid in Durrington, he thought it was too good to be true: “Just travel the 13 miles from Durrington to Brighton; piece of cake.” Then Matt received his transport – a vintage mobility scooter!
Undeterred, he cranked it up to its max speed of 6mph and set off as darkness fell over Brighton: “I checked the speedometer and after seeing it was represented by a tortoise I realised I was in for a long night. It was actually quite a nice ride, the aerodynamics were brilliant although pot hole turbulence was a problem.”
Fellow comedian Dave Thompson was adjudicating the challenge, and had his doubts about Matt’s scooter driving skills. “You’ll be lucky to make it as far as Lancing,” he said. The scooter waded its way through assorted gangs of people, including one stray drunk weaving side-to-side in a cycle lane like a live game of Frogger. After juicing up at a helpful petrol station Matt shocked Dave by rolling up at his house in Shoreham in the early hours of Sunday.
“Dave offered me a glass of Pálinka, a traditional Hungarian fruit brandy, which really hit the spot at 5am,” Matt recalls. “After recharging the batteries I set off to finish my journey, dodging flocks of demonic seagulls along the way.” Matt was beginning to question the difficulty of the task before three calamitous crashes rocked his progress. The worst of them saw the intrepid adventurer actually underestimate his speed as he ran into the back of a slow-shuffling milk float.
But he actually found the main challenge lay in a lack of acceptance of the scooter as a genuine mode of transport. “I soon realised that other people on the road were scared to look at me on my scooter,” he says. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for disabled people trying to make friends at service stations.”
With the finish line in sight, disaster struck as Matt noticed his wallet had slipped out some miles back and in his confusion nearly drove head first for Hove Lagoon. Fortunately, he recovered to reach the Peace Statue before morning had broken across the south coast.
Matt did a backwards lap of honour around the angel to celebrate what he thought was another record. That was until legal advisor Stephan Treehorn informed him that he was still well over 1,500 miles short of John Duckworth’s outrageous record! John travelled 1654.6 miles around mainland UK on a mobility scooter between 20 June 2004 and 27 July 2004 finishing in Hincaster, Cumbria.
But Matt had already experienced an epiphany and declared: “If everyone replaced their cars with mobility scooters then the world would be a more chilled out place.”
Watch Matt’s world record attempt in full at www.thelatest.co.uk/7
Set Matt’s next record-breaking challenge at: www.facebook.com/latest7 or www.facebook.com/mattwhistlerbrighton
Words: Richard Hook
Wednesday
Jun152011
