After the year we’ve all had this Christmas was always going to be an unusual one, but it’s definitely still happening and CBBC presenter Naomi Wilkinson leapt at the opportunity to help make the festive season as merry and bright as possible.
When her friend and fellow BBC children’s TV regular Chris Jarvis asked if she’d like to join him in his Christmas show Happy Ever After at Lighthouse and spend Yule in Poole, she didn’t hesitate.
“Of course I jumped at the chance,” she reveals. “I love the whole Christmas thing, when everyone’s buzzing before they even get to the show, there’s real excitement in the air and the kids are all pumped up about Father Christmas and presents and doing all the things they don’t get to do throughout the rest of the year.
“So I’m absolutely delighted to be playing a part in providing just a little glimmer of a normal Christmas.”
Written and directed by Chris, Happy Ever After is a family Christmas show packed with music and comedy as a host of favourite pantomime and children’s story book characters, from Jack and Genie, to Humpty Dumpty and the Owl and the Pussycat help Cinderella get to her next ball.
“I’ve known Chris for years, but we’ve never really had an opportunity to work together properly before so I can’t wait to get started. We’ve done events for BAFTA together and I recorded some content during lockdown for his Little Radio station, so we are in touch regularly. Then he told me about Happy Ever After and asked if I wanted to be in it.
“I’m not sure how everyone is going to feel about it, but my sense is that everyone has had such a tricky time they’ll be glad to come out and enjoy something that feels a bit like their usual Christmas. To know that everything is being done to keep the show within a safe and COVID-secure environment, and that if the show is cancelled tickets will be refunded, will reassure our audiences.”
Just like the rest of us Naomi has had a bumpy ride this year with the pandemic affecting her work. She was due to film a new series of Marrying Mum and Dad, the CBBC series she co-presents with her good friend and Happy Ever After co-star Ed Petrie, but after several postponements that was cancelled.
She also appears in Ed’s series All Over the Place and presents her own CBBC show, Naomi’s Nightmares of Nature.
“It has been a pretty rubbish year work-wise, but many other people have had it far worse and I’m very conscious of that.
“This year has taught us that making plans is a tricky business but looking ahead I’d love to do more wildlife filming because it gave me the opportunity to see the most amazing things and travel to incredible places.
“It’s a real privilege to be able to make a programme about something kids might not otherwise get to see. Not everyone lives near a coast or a woodland, or open fields so to be able to show young people creatures that don’t live in their back yard is really special. In the same way that panto can be the first time young people experience live theatre, sometimes watching natural history TV shows might be the first time they fall in love with wildlife – you never know who’s watching; we might be inspiring the next David Attenborough.”
With a CV that includes stints on Milkshake, Countryfile and CITV, not to mention appearing with Steve Backshall in Live ’n’ Deadly on CBBC and BBC2 and co-presenting Wild & Weird with Tim Warwood, so much for the cliché about never working with children and animals…
“I’ve spent my career doing just that so I’d say that is rubbish advice – children and animals are great and when you throw in the extra factor of live TV then anything can happen, and it usually does. Of course, things can go wrong, but sometimes they go right because they’ve gone wrong, if you see what I mean, I love it.”
And now that she’s heading back to Poole for Christmas, Naomi says she feels even luckier.
“I know Poole pretty well as my grandparents lived there so we used to always visit during the holidays. We’d go over to Sandbanks and I have many happy memories.
“Now my parents have moved back to Dorset as well, they’ve gone back to their roots so spending Christmas overlooking Brownsea Island from Poole Quay will be a real treat this year, I can’t wait!”
Happy Ever After runs at Poole's Lighthouse between 18 December - 3 January.
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