Matthew Butler (Tiswas)

Matthew James Butler (born 3 October 1974) is a former child performer who appeared on cult Saturday morning children's show Tiswas in 1980 and 1981. He debuted on the show aged five, having won over presenter and producer Chris Tarrant in an audition of children's acts.

Matthew's act was to sing "Bright Eyes" in an endearingly childlike way, prompting laughter and applause from the audience, although Matthew himself did not seem aware of the comedy value of his singing. All of his recitals of 'Bright Eyes' were performed with him dressed in a bunny rabbit costume, holding a large felt carrot.

After his debut in early 1980, he was invited back two weeks later to sing another song - Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall". After this he would be invited back occasionally throughout this series and the next, always performing "Bright Eyes" – when not foiled by Tarrant's cry of "Not now, Matthew!"

Matthew's act rose to a cult status – he even had his cover of the song issued as a commercial single, although it failed to reach the top 100 in the British music charts. The song was included on The Four Bucketeers LP, a piece of Tiswas merchandise. Matthew took the opportunity to perform his song in front of a paying audience at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, on the Tiswas team's Four Bucketeers tour.

His rabbit costume and carrot were made by his mother. According to Tiswas presenter Sally James "Matthew turned up in his rabbit suit and then one week she just turned up with all these rabbit suits for all of us – and all these carrots. It was just so bizarre, and we all wore them. I’ve still got mine! The last time I put it on, my kids were very little, and we said to them ‘If you look out of the window in a moment you’ll see the Easter bunny in the garden, putting Easter eggs around’. And so I hopped outside about five minutes later. You know, obviously they knew it was me, but it was quite fun".

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