Mr Tumble! Post your questions for Justin Fletcher
Take your finger and touch your keyboard, think three times and off you go … We need your questions for the UK supremo of children’s television, Justin Fletcher.
Fletcher, 51, generally has at least three different shows on each day as linchpins of the CBeebies schedule: Justin’s House, which has lately returned for a new series in the breakfast spot, and Something Special, now on its 12th series (and nearly 20th year).
In Justin’s House – sadly now shot without an excitable pre-school studio audience – we track the domestic adventures of Justin along with housemates Robert the Robot and Little Monster, with frequent visits from neighbours and cream-cake mishaps.
In Something Special, Fletcher visits various gentle attractions – a library, a water park, a zoo – with a couple of children with some degree of physical or mental impairment. A pioneering programme aimed at children with delayed learning and communication difficulties but enjoyable for all ages, it features Fletcher using, and explaining, Makaton, the sign and symbol language especially accessible for children.
Fletcher’s most popular character, Mr Tumble, an amiably muddle-headed clown, also features on the show, alongside his family: Grandad Tumble, Lord Tumble, Aunt Polly, Chef Tumble and others, all also played by Fletcher.
Fletcher’s auteurist approach also characterises Gigglequiz, the Fast Show-inspired sketch series in which he plays a wide variety of characters. He voices both Shaun and Timmy in smalland big-screen versions of Bristol-based animation studio Aardman’s Shaun the Sheep – including the 2019 Oscar-nominated Farmageddon, and the forthcoming TV special Shaun the Sheep: the Flight Before Christmas.
Fletcher is the leading player in the annual CBeebies big-screen panto; this
year playing Father Christmas in The Night Before Christmas, which is in cinemas from 4 December. He can also be seen as Billy Pastry in Beauty and the Beast at the Hexagon in Reading later this month.
So what will you ask the son of legendary songwriter Guy Fletcher, who credits Phillip Schofield with early career advice, and whose annual Butlin’s residencies and Camp Bestival shows have earned a reputation as the most energetic and amusing live shows for under-sevens?
Post your questions in the comments below; those from children especially welcome! The thread will close at noon GMT on Thursday 2 December and Justin’s responses will be published on 10 December.