We've secretly attended an event back in May, and I can finally tell you all about it! We met the super famous Elmo and Cookie Monster, and the cast of the Furchester Hotel!
It was our first time visiting the Media City, and we were well impressed! We were fascinated by the massive window stickers on BBC's building, and luckily because of that, we found our way to the correct building! The kids were really excited when they saw The Furchester Hotel sticker on the building and couldn't wait to go inside and see what was in store for us.
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| Sooo FLUFFYYYY!!! |
The first part of the event involves pictures with Elmo and Cookie Monster! The 2 big stars are finally here on CBeebies! When Sesame Tree (do you remember?) was showing, I did wonder why the actual Sesame Street stars never visited (although clips of Sesame Street was shown). So it's very exciting to see a new show on CBeebies that actually involves the all time favourite Elmo and Cookie Monster themselves! Elmo and Cookie Monster were really adorable and have been giving the kids massive fluffy hugs (some kids disappeared completely in it)!
The kids also enjoyed a bit of colouring and taking pictures in the photo booth (I packed the picture away by accident while packing for our move!).
We then moved on into a function room to have a lovely snack, while the kids busied themselves with a CBeebies magazine each. We were then greeted with our second surprise of the day:
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| Pictures with the actual celebrities! |
We've met:
Funella Furchester (Louise Gold) - Furchester Hotel owner
Furgus Fuzz (Andrew Spooner) - Funella's husband (Abby missed a picture with him, doh!)
Phoebe Furchester-Fuzz (Sarah Burgess) - Funella and Furgus' daughter
The story goes that Elmo came to the hotel to visit his cousin Phoebe, while Cookie Monster landed himself his dream job in the hotel - room service and dining room waiter (I don't think there are many cookies around to be served to the guests!). They encounter many different guests and as their family motto is "A Furchester never gives up!", they try all sorts to solve problems and please their guests.
We also watched an episode of unfinished (which made it even more special!) The Furchester hotel and we loved it! We are really looking forward to the launch of the series on CBeebies this Friday 26th September 2014, and to make sure that she won't miss an episode, Abby has asked us to record the whole series for her!
As if this wasn't VIP enough, the producers have granted us a VIP tour to see the filming and visit the actual Furchester Hotel set! The set was very detailed and beautiful, and really really high! I was impressed that they have put so much effort into producing a children's show. The children might not necessary spot some of the details but they still put a 100% into creating the set.
According to the producers, it was specially built on top of a platform so that the puppeteers can work on set with a bit more ease. Apparently some puppet show sets weren't built on top of a platform and the puppeteers have to lie down on the floor to act!
You can see a picture of the set with the platform here on CBeebies Blog for Grown Ups, and a Q & A with one of the producer Dionne, who was ever so lovely to chat to on the day. I'll be looking out for the "AMs" on the show!
We are really glad that we were given the opportunity to meet the cast and see the set. It gave us the opportunity to see what went behind the scene, and allowed the kids to learn the amount of work needed for a 10 minutes episode. It was definitely an eye opening experience for eberyone.
Remember, The Furchester Hotel will be showing on CBeebies this Friday 26th September 2014 at 5pm. If you are a Sesame Street fan, or your child loves Elmo and/ or Cookie Monster, this is definitely the show to catch!