The chipper TV host, podcaster and YouTuber is now a children’s author. She tells Stuart Heritage about her hectic homeschooling routine, why she’s happy to be ‘too busy’ – and the joy of paper made from poo
![CBeebies star Maddie Moate: ‘Elephant poo is so magical!’](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4f9e72838e5e706ef68ebd700e35cbde0a1d7d8f/836_408_1162_698/master/1162.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=9a645d819c7a6abd82997a09c5433283)
Halfway through my interview with Maddie Moate, I check that I haven’t missed anything out of her heaving body of work. There’s a new picture book, Stuff, which is why we’re talking. But there’s also her long line of factual CBeebies shows, among them Maddie’s Do You Know?, which has plunged her – smiling and inquisitive – into countless factories and laboratories since 2016. She also hosts a CBBC series about beekeeping, and runs a
YouTube channel, which was home to a daily, self-produced educational show over lockdown. Then there are the videos she makes about electric cars. Oh, and her podcast, which this year won a
British Podcast award.
I’m sure I’m missing something, I say. “Live shows!” she grins. Of course. The touring science show she hosts with her fiance, fellow TV presenter Greg Foot. “And I’ve just spent the last two weeks prancing about the stage as a reindeer for CBeebies”, she adds. OK, right. “And then at
Christmas, I’m doing my first panto.”