{"id":98658,"date":"2026-01-28T09:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/98658\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T09:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:18:19","slug":"batman-spotted-meeting-people-in-reading-town-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/98658\/","title":{"rendered":"Batman spotted meeting people in Reading town centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The surprise appearance on January 10 brought smiles to shoppers in Reading town centre and led to photos with passers-by.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Behind the mask was Gareth Mathias, an actor and comedian from Reading who also creates character-based content online under the name The Masked Vagabond.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Mathias said: &#8220;I wanted to do something unexpected that would make people smile.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;As an actor, performance doesn\u2019t have to be limited to a stage or a set \u2014 it can happen anywhere.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The visit sparked a flurry of reactions throughout the day, with people stopping to talk, take photos, and post the encounter online.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Mathias hopes to continue popping up with similar public performances.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said: &#8220;It\u2019s about community, creativity, and having a bit of fun.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;If it brightens someone\u2019s day, that\u2019s a win.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The surprise appearance on January 10 brought smiles to shoppers in Reading town centre and led to photos&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-98658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}