Justin Fletcher - Cbeebies 'Something Special'

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Justin Fletcher on the blog. Justin is Mr Tumble in the BBC children’s show, ‘Something Special’.


Something Special has been a huge success and has raised awareness about children with different needs. In the programme Justin uses Makaton sign language. It features children in special schools who use Makaton to communicate. Makaton gives them a voice and relieves the frustration when they can't speak vocally. Justin is now a patron of Makaton.
When Justin was first asked to present the show he didn’t know any Makaton signs. He learnt in the region of about 3 - 400 in about a week, week and a half. His trainers and sign language experts, they continued throughout the filming to be on set the whole time, so if he had done anything wrong, they would have corrected him straight away.
Before working on ‘Something Special’, Justin worked with Dave Benson Phillips on a UK Playdays tour, starred in Fun Song Factory, Tikkabilla and Higgledy House (kind of slapstick, Laurel and Hardy situation). Justin also stars in the Big Party Live Show and Let's Sing Nursery Rhymes DVDs.

Recently there was an online petition asking that Justin be awarded an OBE, unfortunately he wasn’t on the Queens Birthday list. You’ll find quite a few news articles and posts about Justin on the site forum.

I’ve waffled on and just remembered what prompted me to post about Something Special! This morning my daughter sat watching it while I was getting things ready for us to go out. I took a couple of pictures of her signing rabbit (excuse the floppy ears, LOL) and dog. She was also copying him signing hamster, this isn’t a sign that I have used with her before.





We have a couple of Justin Flecther DVDs available at www.Chelltune.co.uk, see here. Please note that Justin doesn't sign in these DVDs.

At the end of Something Special, Justin sings:

‘Good bye, goodbye.
It's time to run,
Good bye, goodbye,
I hope you had good fun.
I say goodbye,
I'm happy that you came.
I say goodbye,
please come back, please come back, please come back again.
Goodbye!’

It seemed appropriate to end blogging in a Justin Fletcher style!