On Friday the 24th of January, 2025, MixMatched hosted its last Arts Council England funded event: MadMatched: Humps and Hurdles! Featuring six fantastic local acts and also headliner Don Biswas, all the way down from London! MixMatched has come a long way since it started in 2022, and we thank everyone who supported us, not just at this night, but throughout our journey!
‘La!’ our new LGBTQIA+ friendly venue welcomed us into their downstairs stage area. Pink, chandeliered, and wonderfully camp, we dove into this new venue!
Starting off the night and warming up the stage, we began with Jonny Vox, who pulled on our heartstrings with poems from bittersweet collections. He was followed by Zara, who runs her own SpokenWord and Open Mic Night, Hive-Mind, in Margate – WOW – in a totally gorgeous, vintage outfit she stole the stage with not only her poems but her honesty and openness talking about her very recent experiences ‘coming out’ as a trans woman… We finished off the first jam-pact act with a bit of comedy!!! – All the way from Ashford, Danny, with ‘premium’ ADHD energy, attacked the stage…. with a hilarious social-political commentary on why he didn’t report his own mugging!
A short break where audience members were encouraged to enter the caption contest (below) whereby three camels wearing sombreros needed a line!
Re-starting us off, local talent Angel Dee graced us with some songs of her new album, many highlighting the difficulties and struggle of advocating for identity.
… Then our next Komedian, Sham Shakil took to the stage! – Hilariously improvising much of his act! – He quizzed audience members about favourite ADHD traits… before telling us about a horedious two-star hotel review (wondering what on earth you’d need to do to get just one!)
One last quick break to build tension… then our headline was up! Don Biswell, delightfully political, explained how, in refusing to ‘temper’ his opinions on stage, he’s lost sets… but we saw it as unabashedly neurodivergent – using his comedy to advocate and enlighten on current affairs.
Lastly, us hosts, Emma and Alice, read out the Caption contest and said a bit thank-you for everyone who supported us…. and, if you’re reading this THANK-YOU AGAIN!