Being Cerrie

“She’s on telly, she’s my mum and she’s got one hand.”

These were Cerrie Burnell’s four-year-old daughter’s words, spoken as she played with other children in a playground in a particularly diverse part of London where many heritages, cultures and faiths come together.

Watching the children play, Burnell had just been pondering how great it was that children just get on with it regardless of all of these differing factors when a little girl noticed Burnell and started screaming: “I don’t like her arm!” With the attention now drawn to Burnell she could hear the other children whispering that the lady with one hand also looked a bit like “that one off the telly.” It was at this point that Burnell’s daughter stood up to loudly and proudly defend her mum – and became the kid everyone wanted to play with.

Burnell shows a mix of pride and disbelief in how her daughter coped in the situation and shrugs uncertainly, “I honestly don’t know whether I’ve made her life easier or harder by being in the public eye.”

Best known as a Cbeebies’ presenters, Burnell is back in Edinburgh with a new play The Magical Playroom that she has written and is being directed by acclaimed director, Hal Chambers (who is directing another four shows this year). The play is about Libby Rose, a spirited little girl who dreams of being a ballerina but is told she won’t be able to fulfill this dream unless she does as the adults say and wears her prosthetic arm.

But although the play deals with a specific set of circumstances, it’s essentially about a child who wants to get her own way. What child, or parent, can’t relate to that? The energetic and wide-eyed enthusiasm that you’d expect from Burnell makes it impossible for the young audience not to be engaged, even if they don’t necessarily understand the complexity of the subject.

Yes, a prosthetic arm is—literally—being waved about, but the children aren’t that interested in it after the initial curiosity. It’s a plastic arm. Got it. Move on. Some of the most enjoyable scenes for the young audience are when we see Libby Rose stomping about stage in the huff, shouting "NO!" at her parents or being threatened with the time out on the naughty step.

For Burnell, that’s the wonderful thing about young children and one of the reasons why she loves performing for them: they are naturally inclusive. “Everyone always goes on about diversity and 'Oh look, so and so’s different so lets celebrate that’ when actually real inclusion is when no one even notices that you’re different.”  

Burnell is a driven—and very busy—lady. It took over a year to write the script for The Magical Playroom, her first children’s book is out in September (called ‘Snowflakes’), she spends half the week working on Cbeebies, is an active Book Trust Ambassador, does work with other charities and—in between all of that—is a mum. But she works hard and certainly has no interest in getting anything for nothing. You can see that she is determined to champion inclusion and get people to think about their own behaviours and beliefs when it comes to diversity and that’s not something new.

During her early career Burnell read for a role in Grange Hill that was described only as ‘amputee’ (“I know I’m not an amputee but, hey, I needed a job!”). The character had been written purely as an apparent figure of fun, their prosthetic arm falling off when shaking peoples’ hands. “It was just awful. So I said to this room full of people, ‘How many amputees do you know?’ And there was just silence.”

After telling the hushed room her own experience with using prosthetics—It’s well documented that Burnell was “made” to wear one until she turned nine and then refused—she didn’t get a call for three weeks. Her friends told her she should have kept quiet until she got the job. “But I just couldn’t. I had to say something.” When they eventually called back they’d had a re-think and asked if they could write a new character, based on her.

So, what next for her? More Cbeebies, more writing, a second book in the pipeline and with her daughter starting school after the summer holidays, she feels “ready to fly”. Burnell might not see herself as a trailblazer but—for at least one generation—she is showing children that if you believe in yourself and your dreams you can do just about anything.