It was announced this week that Mr Tumble legend Justin Fletcher is stepping back from much-loved CBeebies show, 'Something Special'. It has been confirmed that Fletcher, 54, who has been doing the job for 22 years is "temporarily stepping back" from the 'Something Special' and the children's channel.
Justin Fletcher will now have additional presenters hosting the show alongside him – with TV presenter, YouTuber and podcaster Maddie Moate as one of the stars 'replacing' him. But who is she?. Maddie, 36, is just one of the presenters who will be joining Justin on the show, alongside George Webster and Ben Cajee.
The CBeebies programme, which is geared towards crafting for kids who suffer from communication difficulties, including signings, speech and symbols in the Makaton language, has been airing since 2003 – so it's no wonder Fletcher is in need of a break.
But what is Maddie's story? The presenter, from Witney, Oxfordshire, already has her own CBeebies series herself – 'Maddie's Do You Know'. The programme, which sees Maddie explores the workings of everyday objects, by asking how they are made or how they work, saw her awarded the Best Presenter BAFTA at the Children's BAFTAs in 2017.
She found her love of performing when attending the Jill Stew School of Dance and Dramascope when she was younger, which followed on to her studying theatre, film and television at Bristol University. Before heading onto CBeebies, Moate developed and presented The App Show, which was an online comedy series on LadyGeek, alongside Nicola Hume between 2011 to 2012. The series, which had more than 850,000 views, saw them discuss tech issues from a female perspective and was sponsored by Nokia.
