Rose Ayling-Ellis to sign CBeebies Bedtime Story

Image credit: BBC

Rose Ayling-Ellis, the actress and Strictly Come Dancing champion, will be the first celebrity to autograph a CBeebies bedtime tale on Sunday.

To commemorate Deaf Awareness Week, Ayling-Ellis, who has been deaf since birth, will tell the story, Can Bears Ski? In British Sign Language (BSL).

The author’s personal experience is used to tell the story of a young bear who is deaf in a hearing world.

Ayling-Ellis expressed her hope that it would encourage kids to learn to sign.

Can Bears Ski? It is a picture book written by Raymond Antrobus and illustrated by Polly Dunbar about a son and his father as they learn to live with deafness.

It will be CBeebies’ first-ever BSL-signed story, and Ayling-Ellis will only speak twice throughout the entire show. Once at the start of the story introduce the characters and once at the end to bid the audience goodbye. Subtitles will be available for the story.

After starring as Frankie Lewis in the BBC series EastEnders, Ayling-Ellis went on to win Strictly Come Dancing for the first time.

She was also nominated for the 2022 Bafta Awards’ Must-See Moment of the Year for her Couple’s Choice dance routine with partner Giovanni Pernice, which included a portion when the two danced without music to honour the deaf population.

The actress has worked hard to have BSL recognised as an official language and given legal standing in the United Kingdom.

Her story, the first of two for CBeebies, will air on Sunday to commemorate the end of Deaf Awareness Week.

Dolly Parton, Tom Hardy, and Ed Sheeran have all read a CBeebies Bedtime Story, including one about a boy with a stutter, which he had as a child.

In 2018, Catastrophe actor Rob Delaney became the first person to tell a CBeebies Bedtime Story in Makaton, a first for the show.

Earlier this year, the Duchess of Cambridge became the first royal to host the show.

Every Saturday and Sunday, CBeebies Bedtime Stories airs at 18:50, with episodes signed by a BSL interpreter.

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