Magic Hands
This spring CBeebies will be making TV history with its brand new series, Magic Hands. The programme is breaking new ground by featuring poetry for children translated entirely into British Sign Language (BSL) and, at the same time, opening up the world of poetry to a younger audience.
Published: 26 March 2013
From Robert Louis Stephenson to Roger Stevens and Michaela Morgan the programmes are fun, five-minute packages that mix sign language, the spoken word, music and vibrant animation to bring the poems to life and capture the imaginations of both deaf and hearing children.
A co-commission with BBC Learning, the series is made for CBeebies by Remark Ltd, a company that is owned, staffed and run by people who are deaf.
The Magic Hands presenters are all new to children’s television and are all profoundly deaf. On set they worked with professional interpreters along with the series’ artistic director, Jean St Clair, and both deaf and hearing production crew.
Here they tell us a bit about themselves and what it means to them to have been part of the production. There’s also a sneaky peak behind the scenes and the team reveal the mammoth challenges they had to overcome in bringing the programme to CBeebies.
Production credits
Executive producer for the BBC – Michael Towner
Series producer – Judith Bunting
Director/writer/producer – Camilla Arnold
KW/JC4
