CBeebies icon Mr Tumble has been seen for the first time with his girlfriend, Samantha Dorrance, after reports emerged that the co-stars had started dating. The 55-year-old, whose real name is Justin Fletcher, was spotted arriving at a four-star hotel in Wolverhampton alongside Dorrance, who plays his character’s best friend Tootsie on the children’s show.
The pair were wearing matching New York Yankees baseball caps and wheeling bags into The Mount Country Manor Hotel & Golf, shortly after it was reported that Fletcher is ‘madly in love’ with Dorrance. Fletcher wore a low-key green gilet with sunglasses, while Dorrance opted for a more summery look in a dress and sweater.
The couple are currently on a break from the Justin Live: Justin Time to Rock! tour, in which they both star. Castmates are said to be aware of the relationship. Dorrance, who is twenty years Fletcher’s junior, is understood to have moved into his £2.5 million farmhouse in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
Friends of the couple are said to be ‘thrilled’ that he has ‘found the one’, having previously admitted that he struggled to find love due to his hectic work schedule. A source told The Sun that the couple’s romance ‘blossomed’ last year, after which Dorrance moved into his six-bedroom pile. The source said: ‘Justin and Samantha are madly in love and couldn’t be happier. Although there is an age gap it isn’t an issue between them. For Justin, Samantha is the one. Justin was single for a while before he reconnected with Samantha and it went from there.’
Dorrance landed the role of Tootsie in The Tale of Mr Tumble in 2015 and has gone on to perform on stage with Fletcher, playing Cinders in Cinderella in 2024. At the time, she shared a snap of her casting photograph alongside Fletcher and wrote: ‘I couldn’t ask for a better Buttons.’
On social media, she refers obliquely to her ‘partner’ and does not tag Fletcher’s Instagram account. In March, she shared a slideshow of chicks and eggs, writing: ‘Last year, me and my partner hatched our own chickens. I was making breakfast one morning and noticed all the eggs we had been buying from our local honesty box were fertilised. My partner just so happened to have an old incubator, so we dug it out.’
