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.
Image:
Instagram/ @maddiemoate)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.
Following this was a presenting stint on Newsburst on O2 Guru TV in 2012, which had more than four millions views. She also hosted Channel 4 show Home of the Future in the same year.
Next, she made three films for Samsung between 2012 and 2013 and also presented a series of films for Intel and Argos, for use in their 'Superhuman Academy' and 'Smarten Up' campaigns.
Since 2014, Maddie has been the lead presenter of BBC Earth Unplugged, a BBC produced channel on YouTube that has more than 480,000 subscribers.She also had her own spin-off show on BBC America titled 'It's a Mad Mad Maddie World!'.
When the Covid pandemic hit, Maddie and her then-partner Greg Foot filmed a YouTube livestream titled 'Let's go Live', which had different themes each week. Each stream was science-based and includes ideas of things people could do at home during lockdown.
Continuing with her YouTube success, Maddie became a presenter on 'Fully Charged', a Youtube channel exploring battery-electric vehicles and renewable energy. In the same year, she started her podcast 'Maddie's Sound Explorers' – with it even earning her the Best Family Podcast title in the British Podcast Awards back in 2021.
Maddie stuck with online presenting in 2022, hosting a YouTube Original titled 'Maddie's Urban Jungles'. She also hosted an international series for Magnolia, 'Make Yourself At Home', which can viewed on Discovery+.
Alongside all of this, Maddie has been the resident technology expert on BBC 5 Live Saturday Edition since 2014 and regularly features on BBC 5 Live's Big Share,[26] Good Morning Britain and BBC Breakfast.
She also released a book in September 2021 called 'Stuff', which aimed to inspire children on a wide range of topics. She then penned a festive book, 'Very Curious Christmas', back in 2023, subtitled "Festive fun and seasonal science from around the world".
If that wasn't enough, Maddie also has had a thriving stage career, appearing in De Montfort Hall's production of Sleeping Beauty between 2021-2022. She's also performed as Tinkerbell at York Theatre Royal's performance of Peter Pan, and wrote and starred in 'A Very Curious Christmas', a Christmas-themed live science show at the Apollo Theatre last year.
English (US) ·