Claire "Cerrie" Burnell is an English actress, singer, playwright, children's author, and former television presenter for the BBC children's channel CBeebies. In 2018, she portrayed the role of Penny Stevenson in the BBC soap opera Doctors. Burnell was born with a right arm that ends just below the elbow. Her initial appearance on CBeebies sparked a controversy about children's television presenters with physical disabilities and the apparent prejudice of complainants.
Personal life
Burnell's mother is a dance teacher, and her father a telecoms manager. She has one younger brother. She was originally named "Claire", but started asking people to call her "Cerrie" at the age of ten. Burnell was born with her right arm ending slightly below the elbow. Her parents encouraged her to wear a prosthetic arm, but she resisted from the start, and stopped wearing one entirely when she was nine. Burnell also suffered from dyslexia, which left her unable to read until the age of ten. She learned with extra tuition and the Letterland system. Burnell has a daughter, Amelie, born in 2008.
Acting career
Burnell graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, where she studied acting. She has performed in theatre in the UK, where she received favourable reviews, and in Brazil with the CTORio Political Theatre Company. Burnell was also a member of National Youth Theatre. She has appeared in UK television parts in Holby City, EastEnders, Grange Hill, The Bill, and Comedy Lab. She is the author of Winged – A Fairytale, a play about Violet, a one-winged fairy in a London inner city fairy community, which she also starred in when it was staged at the Tristan Bates Theatre, London in 2007. She starred in The First to Go by Nabil Shaban, about the "Disabled Holocaust" in Nazi Germany, playing the part of Brunhilde, at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh in 2008. Besides acting, she has worked as a teaching assistant in a special needs school.
CBeebies
Burnell joined CBeebies' presentation department on 26 January 2009, as a continuity presenter for Discover and Do and The Bedtime Hour, alongside Alex Winters. Within a month of her beginning co-presenting, she attracted controversy from parents complaining that the one-armed presenter was scaring children, and prompting difficult conversations to explain her disability. She and the BBC have been defended by multiple disability groups stating that the problem was with the prejudices of the parents projected on to the children. Burnell left presenting CBeebies in April 2017.
''Doctors''
In 2018, Burnell played the role of Penny Stevenson for a short stint in the Birmingham-based soap opera Doctors.
Author
Burnell's children's book, Snowflakes was published by Scholastic Corporation in September 2013. It is about a mixed-race girl from the city sent to live with her grandmother in a magical village, and was inspired by Burnell's daughter, who is also mixed-race. In 2016, Burnell wrote another children's book titled Harper and the Sea of Secrets for World Book Day which was sold at bookshops and supermarkets for £1 or free with a Book Day token from the end of February that year. This book was aimed at Key Stage 2 pupils. Once again, this book was published by Scholastic.
