Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Janette Manrara is a dancer and choreographer who we first got to know as one of the professional dancers in the UK on Strictly Come Dancing, and who now presents its sister show ‘It Takes Two’.  Janette is married to fellow dancer Aljaz Skorjanec and together they have a 2 year old Lyra. Janette and I talked about her start in life as daughter of a young Cuban immigrant couple in Miami, and...

Anya Lautenbach is a gardener who I discovered on Instagram as anya_thegarden_fairy. From Poland originally, Anya moved to to the UK 17 years ago and has two boys aged 12 and 14.  We talked about the grief which Anya has experienced because of her sister having two sons with a rare genetic condition which turned out to be terminal.  Anya explained how every time she had bad news from hom...

Jo-Ann D’Costa-Manuel is a charity pioneer. She received an OBE for her years of voluntary work raising the profile of hidden disabilities. She persuaded airlines to recognise green lanyards with sunflowers, as a symbol of a family member flying with a hidden disability. She was also behind the ‘quiet hour’ in supermarkets to help children like her own son, who is autistic, and needs a quiet...

Francesca Amber is a successful entrepreneur, podcaster and author who turned her life around using manifesting after everything went wrong for her in 2020. She has 3 daughters. Her eldest is 8 years old, and she has 4 year old twins who are starting school this September.  In lockdown she lost her beauty business and her income and then had her twins as a single mother. She says she had a s...

Genevieve Turley is a make up artist who posts funny content online, making light of makeup tutorials and not taking her self seriously at all. We talked about how wearing makeup makes us both happy. She told me about her career in the RAF, her IVF journey and her life now, doing bridal makeup and creating comedy content online. Genevieve has two children aged 6 and 7, and after a 3 year renovatio...

Ro Fielden-Cook is a woman with a heck of a life story.  She has 3 sons: twins Alfie and Charlie (aged 15) and Freddie (aged 7). She is the founder of a wellbeing and fitness community ‘The SHE Collective’ which has a holistic approach to giving busy women more life, more confidence and more energy.  She had her twins as a single mother as she left University. One of the twins, Alfie, wa...

Ranvir Singh is a TV news presenter on Good Morning Britain, who I met on the set of ‘Lorraine’ about a year ago - and I’ve been wanting to talk to her in more depth ever since. Ranvir is a single parent to her 13 year old son Tushaan. She grew up in a very religious Sikh household, having lost her Dad when she was only 9.  She was the first girl in her family to go to University, and despite...

Laura Hamilton is a TV presenter best known for presenting A Place in the Sun.  She’s been renovating properties since the age of 19 and has just taken on her first overseas project in Majorca, which she’s filming, to create a guide to buying and renovating abroad. Laura has two children, 11 year old Rocco and 10 year old Tahlia, who she co parents 50/50 with her ex. Laura went back to work 3...

Cathy Dennis is a singer and a songwriter. I have been a huge fan of hers for years both through her solo music career and I’ve been lucky enough to write with her and get to know over the years. She is a true talent and a champion for music and creativity.  She had a successful solo career in the early 90s, and then changed to songwriting in the 2000s, including writing Kylie’s ‘Can’t Get Yo...

Jill Halfpenny has been an actor since the age of 10, first coming to our screens in Byker Grove in 1989, and most recently appearing in the Channel 5 drama The Feud. She has also appeared in Coronation Street, Eastenders, numerous TV dramas, on the West End stage and in Strictly Come Dancing. We shared our thoughts on dealing with downtime as performers, which has its challenges even in a bu...

Rachel Kelly is a writer of many books about mental health and wellbeing and has recently published ‘The Gift of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less’. She is a mum of five grown up children. Rachel and I talked about the teenage brain and how it’s wired for novelty, connection with peers, and altruism. We discussed how we could be more sympathetic to what teenagers are going through. She also had...

Salima Saxton is a writer, an actor and a coach, and she co-presents the podcast ‘Women are Mad’. She has 3 children aged 9, 12 and 15 and she recently caught my attention with her amazing Moth story about a Valentine’s Day announcement by her husband which changed her life. It’s 5 minutes of supreme story telling; you must listen!  Salima and I talked about how she grew up with an alcoholic...

Karni Arieli is a photographer. Her lockdown project Eye Mama @eyemamaproject asked photographer mums all over the world to share honest pictures of their own experiences of motherhood. She has just had it published as a book. She also makes short films, commercials and music videos and has recently had a BAFTA nomination for a film about the life of a salmon, played by a woman and narra...

Olympic athlete and TV commentator Paula Radcliffe lives in Monaco with her husband Gary, and her two children Isla and Raphael. Paula is a 3 time winner of the London Marathon and held the Women's World Marathon Record for 16 years (2003-2019). I spoke to her just after she competed in the Tokyo Marathon aged 51, her first marathon since retiring aged 40. Paula recently co-hosted a ligh...

Daria Khrystenko fled her home in Kyiv on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine 3 years ago.  She, her then 10 year old son, her mum and her 3 cats travelled to Poland where Daria now works with CARE Poland, as a translator and advocate, helping other refugee women rebuild their lives. Daria told me about the day the war broke out, and how she packed and left home in 20 minutes. She explained h...

Susie Crow runs a small business called Let Us Pretend, in which she ‘makes sparkly things’. I have bought wonderful brightly coloured, fringed capes from her which say ‘Happy New Year!’ and ‘Happy Christmas!’ She also makes personalised banners.  Originally from Newcastle, Susie now lives in Sussex and has three children and a creative job that she loves. And she is the only person I can thi...

Actress Tuppence Middleton is perhaps best known for playing Lucy Branson in Downton Abbey. She has a little girl with her Swedish husband and divides her time between England and Sweden. I spoke to Tuppence the week before her memoir Scorpions was published. It’s a highly personal book about living with OCD and it really helped me understand the day to day complexities of dealing with OCD and wit...

Arlene Phillips is a choregrapher who has been at the top of her game for most of her 81 years.   She has worked on the choreography for numerous adverts, musicals, film and videos. She has two daughters: Alana who she had early in her career when she was just about to go to Hollywood to make a film with the Village People called 'Can't stop the Music', and then she had her second daught...

Princess Superstar is an American rapper and DJ. She and I are ‘Saltburn sisters’ as we both had our songs featured in the film, which gave them their exciting resurgence of popularity last year. Princess Superstar has a 13 year old daughter, who she homeschooled till the age of 11, believing that mainstream school doesn't nurture a child's unique creativity. &nb...

Abbie Ward is a professional rugby union player who plays at international level for England and at club level for Bristol Bears. Abbie grew up in Cumbria in a very active family and tried out many sports before discovering rugby which she describes as a love affair she didn't see coming! She is married to former Harlequins hooker Dave Ward, who is also her head coach, and together they have a dau...

Sarah Megginson (@sarahmegginsonmoney) is an editor and personal finance expert from Australia, who has co-written a book called The Power of Two.  She has three children (Lila 14, Noa 11 and Jesse 9) and she was a surrogate mother for her friend Lisa’s baby in 2023. Baby Hugo is now 18 months old and Sarah explained to me how he feels like a nephew to her, although she carried and gave birth...

Katherine Jenkins is a Welsh mezzo-soprano classical singer from Neath. She won Welsh Choirgirl of the Year aged 10, and became more widely known when she sang at Westminster Cathedral in 2003 to mark the Pope’s silver jubilee. Since then she has released numerous classical and classical crossover albums. When we met last week Katherine was heading to the studio to work on a new album. She continu...

Cat Sims @notsosmugnow is a content creator, author and influencer, and mum to two daughters aged 8 and 11. On Instagram she takes an honest look (often with a big dose of humour) at motherhood, the mental load, relationships and more recently, sobriety, as Cat has just celebrated 3 years of being sober. We talked about how doing reels and tiktok is like doing therapy for Cat. She shared how she s...

Singer Pixie Lott has had a ’crazy, happy time’ this past year: having a baby, bringing out a new album ‘Encino’, and moving into a family home near her mum, dad and siblings.  We talked about how we both started in the music industry when we were teenagers and realised we share the same work ethic of ‘just keep turning up’. We also discussed the joy and the worry that comes when we say no to...

Anna Williamson is a presenter, podcaster, author, psychotherapist, relationship counsellor and life coach.  She told me how she suffered with poor mental health in her 20s and after the birth of her first child. These experiences really shaped her and helped form one of the best marriages in her professional life: being a psychotherapist on Celebs Go Dating ( which happens to be one of my fa...