Mat Fraser

Mat Fraser is an English rock musician, actor and performance artist. Between 1980 and 1995 he was a drummer with several rock bands including Fear of Sex, The Reasonable Strollers, Joyride, The Grateful Dub, and Living in Texas.

Fraser was born with phocomelia of both arms, due to his mother being prescribed thalidomide during her pregnancy. As a live artist he was a member of the performance art group The DHSS in the early 1990s. He was included in Manuel Vason's book "Exposures" and has performed at numerous internationally renowned venues. He received considerable critical acclaim for his one-man show "Seal Boy." In 1999 he worked with the Hydra Collective on an event known as "Wrong Bodies" at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

As an actor Fraser has performed on the hit show "American Horror Story: Freakshow: and with the "Graeae Theatre Company," Europe's leading disabled theatre company. He is the creator and main performer in a new play called "Thalidomide!! A Musical." He also co-hosts the BBC's Ouch! Podcast.

Fraser has appeared on television both as a presenter and as an actor, in a number of productions including Metrosexuality and Every Time You Look at Me. He is also a martial artist having studied hapkido, taekwondo and karate.

Fraser and his wife - burlesque star Julie Atlas Muz - produced and toured a play entitled "Beauty and the Beast" in the UK and US 2013-14 - a modern, adult retelling of the fairy tale.

Fraser coined the use of term "spacking up" to describe when an able-bodied actor plays the part of a disabled person rather than the part going to a disabled actor, as a play on "blacking up," used to describe the controversial practice where non-black actors take on the characters of black people.

His film "Kung Fu Flid" was released in 2009, starring Faye Tozer (formerly of pop group Steps), Frank Harper and Terry Stone.

Fraser played the drums in a performance of Ian Dury's "Spasticus Autisticus" at the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony and with Coldplay during the closing ceremony.