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There was a children's programme weekdays on UK television in the mid 1980's. The idea was to help children to read. Maybe twenty minutes twice a week. Lots of short sketches.

Victoria Wood played a Witch called "WordWitch" and she needed an assistant in episode one, she therefore cast a spell, this man appeared and he was then in most of the sketches with her as "SuperSign".

Occasionally she would get exasperated with his general air of simple mindedness and wave her wand while declaring she would 'unmake' him. He usually then started crying and pleading so she gave in and let him stay.

Who played the part of SuperSign?

I asked this question about 12 years ago on a 'Do You Remember' site (link long forgotten) and several answers stated Derek Griffiths, I know he did appear on children's programmes with her but this answer was incorrect.

Derek Griffiths was a somewhat stocky black actor with a moustache, the guy who played SuperSign was tall, thin, white and clean shaven with fair hair in a short style.

Also I think (but am not sure) that he had a North East England accent.

The guy looked somewhat similar to modern day comedian James Acaster (which is what inspired my fresh go at this question!)

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The programme was aimed to help particularly deaf children to read! Supersign was played by a brilliant British Sign Language interpreter called Peter Llewellyn-Jones; his job was to sign in a way that young deaf kids would relate to. My deaf son, then 3, absolutely loved it.

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  • Mr Llewellyn-Jones appears to now run a company teaching people how to sign. A very worthy career choice :-)
    – Valorum
    Mar 27, 2022 at 7:52

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