Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Exciting news! My band and I are heading out on my biggest UK tour ever AND I am releasing a brand new album. I cannot wait! 🪩💃 Tickets for my UK tour 2025 go on general sale on 1st Nov. Pre-order my new album now & get access to tour pre-sale from 9AM GMT on 30th Oct

The podcast is back! I have more wonderful guests for you and all of them are working women who happen to be mothers.

To kick off series 14 my guest is Joanne Hardcastle. I first came to know Joanne when she was a contestant on the fourth series of Interior Design Masters, which is a tv show I adore (head judge Michelle Ogundehin has been a guest on the pod, too). Joanne’s husband Tim encouraged her to apply for the show and she says it was the first time she had ever put herself first, and she loves her new found ‘me-time’. Like me, Joanne has an eye for colour and vintage design. Our tastes are quite similar.

Joanne lost her mum at the age of 17 and had a strong urge to become a mum herself, and she has been open about having 6 miscarriages during her motherhood journey. She now has 3 grown up daughters, the youngest being her foster child. She spoke to me about the journey of building up trust with her foster daughter and how she has taught her children not to be frightened of conflict and to know that adults aren’t always right.

Anne Twist is a first time writer and a long-term philanthropist who has two very successful grown up children.  Her eldest is podcaster and writer Gemma Styles, and her youngest is the singer, Harry Styles. 

I spoke to Anne, not long after she’d become a grandmother for the first time, which sounds like a very special feeling indeed.  She’d also just published her first children’s book ‘Betty and the Mysterious Visitor’.

We talked about Anne’s lifelong battle with shyness, the pride that she feels about the adults that both her children have become, and how she gets so much pleasure from looking around at people while they are watching Harry perform on stage. 

We also talked about how Anne has wing-walked to raise money and awareness for Parkinson’s. And I tried to persuade her to do a double wing walk and a loop the loop with me in the future! I’m genuinely up for it.

Not long now before my first ever North America tour... can’t wait! Thank you to all of you who have tour tickets already. 5 cities are sold out (wow!) and last few tickets are available in Boston and Philadelphia. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Road trip! See you soon.

Rachel Jackson is a jewellery designer whose work I particularly love.  We even collaborated with on a necklace design once, a phoenix for the charity mothers2mothers.

She discovered her passion for her career while solo travelling in South America where she made a good friend Ale in Brazil and then spent 2 months living with his mum Cinderella (yes that really was her name!) who taught her how to make jewellery. 6 weeks after she returned to the UK Ale was tragically killed in a plane accident which made Rachel feel how fleeting life is. She then gave up a well-paid job in TV to pursue her dream of designing and selling her own jewellery. She started with a stall in Spitalfields market, earning very little, and worked up to selling to Liberty and Selfridges. She often collaborates with charities which gives a meaning and a story to each piece of jewellery.

Rachel has two children, Herbie aged 6 and River aged 10. Her husband took a year out of his job to do the lion’s share of the child care when they had their 2nd baby, enabling Rachel to grow the company at a crucial time.

Rachel doesn’t really feel she’s a baby person but particularly loves the feeling of being increasingly needed now, as they are getting older. Unlike me, she’s an excellent planner and always has plenty of activities sorted out for the weekend. When we spoke, I had a Bank Holiday of nothingness ahead, so I rather envied her good planner trait!

Natalie Cassidy is familiar to us all from EastEnders where she's been playing Sonia since the age of 10!

When we met she told me about her love of growing up on a TV set, where age meant nothing and her best friend was June Brown, who was 50 years older than her.

Natalie is a mum of two daughters, Eliza and Joanie. My heart melted when she described how she and her husband Marc met when Eliza was just three, and he said he'd fallen in love first with Natalie and then when he met Eliza, he fell in love again.

Natalie's about to turn 41 this week. She already has one podcast 'Off the Telly' which she co-hosts with actress Joanna Page and she's just launched a solo podcast 'Life With Nat' which immediately went to number one in the podcast charts.

We talked about how grateful we are that we didn't have social media as teenagers and we revisited our teen love of culottes! Also I tried to invite myself on her podcast to talk about teenagers and phones. I have no shame…

Bat For Lashes aka Natasha Khan is a singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and a mum to a three year old daughter, Delphi. 

She is bringing out her 6th album and this one is inspired by the birth of her child and is called The Dream of Delphi. 

She was pregnant in LA during Covid and the album recalls how she reconnected with nature during that time, reflecting the landscape of the city, mountains and the desert. She's now separated from Delphi's Dad but explained they are still best friends and happily co-parent together.

We spoke about how she felt about becoming a mum later in life and we talked about that special liminal moment when you have just given birth and it dawns on you that you are moving from who you were into who you are going to be - a transformational moment.

I love Natasha’s work and this album is very beautiful. It was a joy to talk to her for Spinning Plates. Listen to Natasha’s new music on 31st May - it’s gorgeous.

Vicky Gill is the Wardrobe Lead for Strictly Come Dancing, amongst many other things! We first met when I appeared on the show in 2013. She is passionate about merging fashion and performance. I can vouch for the fact that she is supremely talented at making costumes that people can dance in - and her sparkly leotards are still part of my onstage essentials today. But as a mum of three she was also great at sharing glimpses of normal family life with me, which you very much appreciate when you are on the Strictly juggernaut!

When we spoke, Vicky had just finished Dancing on Ice and was about to start work on the Girls Aloud tour.  She is a very busy woman.

Vicky and her husband are from Newcastle originally but live in London, and as their family support network is far away, she describes their situation as 'us against the world'.  She is hoping her children - now in their teens and beyond - don't choose the creative careers which she and her husband have (between you and me, I don't think that's working so far!) but she says she just wants them to feel happy in their skin.  

Vicky prides herself on being a problem-solver - both in her working life and in her parenting.  And sometimes the worlds have collided - as when she was working with Girls Aloud just after her daughter was born, when she found that nappy cream comes in handy for getting boob tape off!

Michelle Ogundehin is best known as the head judge of Interior Designs Masterclass on BBC 1. It’s a programme I am utterly addicted to, and I was therefore delighted to have been asked to join as a guest judge for semi finals week, this week (TX 23/4/24). I have been a fan of Michelle’s expert eye when it comes to interiors for a long time, having devoured every issue of Elle Decoration published during her time as editor in chief from 2004-2017. I love her approach to homes and how they make you feel, always taking into account the link between our environment and how it affects our mental health. 

Off-screen, Michelle is a devoted single mum to her 10 year old son. She became a mum later in life, after years of trying, and her journey included IVF and four miscarriages. She says her son is the best thing that has ever happened to her. 

We talked about her worries about becoming a mum due to her own mother not being maternal or loving to her. 

She told me how she has recently been ‘album-ing’ her life and also that she believes that what surrounds us at home affects us. 

I finally tested her boundaries when I mischievously suggested she should let her little boy draw on his bedroom walls, just as my mum let me!

Heather James is best known to us all as the mum of Deborah James, the beautiful bowelbabe, who I interviewed for Spinning Plates 3 years ago. That was the year before her premature death at the age of 40, from bowel cancer.

Heather explained how she is grieving but working. Not only working in her day job as a gymnastics teacher, but also doing everything that Deborah would have continued with - including campaigning to highlight April as Bowel Cancer Awareness month.

Deborah spent the last weeks of her life at her mum and dad's house in the summer of 2022 surrounded by her family. Heather and her husband Alistair found themselves looking after Deborah and, to everyone's surprise, hosting Prince William when he came to their garden to make Deborah a Dame. Heather talked about caring for Deborah when she came home to die, but said Deborah's zest for life - and campaigning - meant that far from going quiet, it was a busy time of fun, outings, a book, a rose and of course, a Damehood.

It struck me that Heather is everything you would hope to be, as a mum in such a dreadful circumstance.

She is planning to life life to the full, as Deborah wanted her to. And we spoke, just before her son's wedding where the entire family were planning to party and celebrate just as Deborah would have done if she were still here. And speaking as someone who witnessed her 40th birthday party in full swing, boy, did Deborah know how to party!

New podcast series klaxon!! Spinning Plates is back, and we kick off the the new series with a friend of mine :-) Natasha Bedingfield is a New Zealand-UK singer and songwriter who started out in the business at a similar time to me.  Another shared link is that we are both currently on a new adventure with songs we brought out originally in our early 20s! How's that for a coincidence?  We've each been on an unexpected and exciting journey with our old songs... both because of recent films.  The film 'Anyone but You' featured Natasha's 'Unwritten' which originally charted nearly 20 years ago. 

Natasha talked about her place in her own family's politics, where her brother Daniel was the first to get into the music industry. Natasha had to fight to pursue her music career; in her family's eyes, that 'place' had already been taken by her sibling! (Sidenote: Daniel's debut single 'Gotta Get Thru This' kept Murder off the top spot in the charts 22 years ago - not that I'm holding a grudge or anything, Daniel!)

Natasha has a little boy who is now 6.  When he was 2, he was taken seriously ill with a spontaneous brain abscess He had to have two surgeries and was in hospital for 5 weeks.  Thankfully there was a cure and he is fully recovered, but the time he was in hospital was obviously an extremely difficult period for Natasha and her husband. Natasha remembers having to perform a gig while her son was still in hospital. She shared how terribly difficult that was, and how in a room full of small talk she would suddenly blurt out 'My son's in hospital!'.

On a lighter note Natasha and I talked about how having a baby changed our singing range - for the better!  And we agreed that we are both really enjoying the new ride with our old songs from the early 2000s. It was such a pleasure to hang out with Natasha - she’s such a positive person - and here’s to another series of Spinning Plates!

I cannot believe that 4 cities are already sold out 🎉 Thank you so much. Can’t flipping wait! 85 days to go ✈️ Tickets for my North America Tour are selling fast 🎫 🇺🇸 🇨🇦

Exciting update for TONIGHT!