Katie Melua had massive fame at the age of 19 with the release of her first album 'Call Off the Search', and then 2 years later with her hit 'Nine Million Bicycles'. She has brought out 8 albums since then, with her 9th album 'Love & Money' which she recorded last year while she was pregnant, just released last month.

We met recently at her house when her gorgeous baby boy was just 3 months old. She talked about how her thoughts about parenthood have changed over the years from wondering whether parenthood would ever be part of her life; to realising following a nervous breakdown in 2010 that she did want to be a mum; meeting her partner Ollie in lockdown and freezing her eggs; but then having their treasured little boy naturally. 

Katie was very open about how she suffered a dramatic burnout, and she paid tribute to psychiatrist Dr Mike McPhillips who helped her make a full recovery. We agreed it shouldn't be taboo to talk about such experiences. Katie said as soon as he is big enough, she will be talking to her son about ways of dealing with anxiety or panic attacks, as she wants him to be equipped to deal with them, whether that's for himself or his friends.

It was great to hear Katie say that her confidence as a woman went up when her son Sandro was born. This is not something I hear very often from new mums. But she deserves this happy time, and is looking forward to touring with her babe in tow, in May 2023. Yes - next month - and I'm going to see her!

WARNING: Contains conversations around suicidal thoughts and mention of suicide

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hannah Chambers has spent 25 years in the comedy management business looking after many famous comedians including Jimmy Carr, Sarah Millican, Joe Lycett and Aisling Bea. 

As she explains, she has given up her Monday to Friday fully for her job, and in fact it's not unusual for her to work 14 hour days, often spending evenings watching stand up shows or TV recordings that her clients are appearing in. She loves her job and says she's a bit like a Jewish mother to her clients: pushy, but wanting them to eat properly too! 

We met at The Garden Cinema near Holborn - which houses her offices but is also a newly-opened cinema, designed and built just before lockdown by her Dad.  

We recorded our chat in Screen 1, with plush red velvet seats in front of us and a lovely heavy cinema curtain behind us.

Hannah has been on my radar for a long time as my best friend Maria worked with her husband Jeremy, and I have always admired their decision for Hannah to carry on her more-than-full-time job when she became a mum, while Jeremy took on the role of primary carer.

Hannah is always quick to tell people about this and is refreshingly unapologetic about it - as she is about everything!

I loved Hannah’s sense of humour and her resilience - two things she wants to pass on to her daughters.

She told me about a photo she keeps on her phone, of her doing a deal for Jimmy Carr, from her hospital bed, 30 minutes after her first daughter Rosie was born. That probably sums her up: incredibly hard-working but with a great self-deprecating sense of humour. Her daughters recently made her laugh, predicting her tombstone would read ‘Jimmy, I’ll call you back!’

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Siobhán Donaghy is a singer songwriter best known as one of the Sugababes. The Sugababes have now reformed in their original line-up and last year wowed Glastonbury to the extent they had to close the field they were performing to, because so many people wanted to get to see them - shows just how delighted people are to have the band back together. 

Siobhán signed her first record deal at the incredibly young age of 14, and told me how her mum and dad agreed to put their house on the line for her career. They had huge success as the Sugababes, but also some very turbulent times. 

Siobhán shared with me that she suffered absolutely crippling stage fright and panic attacks back then, and up until the point she became a mum. Having children has made her much less anxious on stage. To the extent that it was only half way through our chat that Siobhan casually mentioned they'd been performing at Wembley stadium the night before!

Siobhán has a little boy aged 5 and a little girl born just after the first lockdown, aged 2. We talked about the pros and cons of taking your own children to your gigs when you are performing. Let's say she's had a better reaction from her little boy's first gig recently, than I have had over quite a few years with mine!

We agreed that performing on stage now can feel way less stressful than being at home with the kids... and as if to test that theory out, the Sugababes will be performing at the O2 on 15th September 2023!

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I met up with singer and broadcaster Jessie Ware at her home in South London, on the very day her new single 'Pearls' was released. She told me how she'd had to miss the school run that morning to record a TikTok of herself listening to the first play of the single, while dancing in her kitchen. What a strange job we have! We also talked about how funny it is when your two worlds of music and motherhood collide: like when one of Jessie's mum-friends did a double take when she saw her at a children's party, as she'd just seen a billboard of Jessie's face in Queens Road Peckham advertising the new single!

Jessie and I have lots in common, one thing being that we both had three children in our 30s while making and releasing music. We compared notes on the times when motherhood didn't fit in with the music industry. We also confessed to some of the things we love about being on tour....watching box sets in the day; being offered cups of tea, and even the odd massage! Basically being completely looked after!

We also talked about Jessie's incredibly popular podcast, Table Manners, which she makes with her mum Lennie, in which a celebrity guest pops round for a meal cooked for them by Lennie, and they eat together and chat. We talked about how I had fared as a guest, at a fairly raucous live version of the podcast last year. It was fun, energetic and quite cheeky - not a bad description of Jessie herself, as you will hear from our chat! 

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claire Hodgson is a theatre director who hates rules and who wants to make a difference to the world through the shows that she makes. 

I first met her last year at Camp Bestival, when she was coordinating the Guinness world record attempt for the largest number of simultaneous disco dancers!! 600 altogether - and they did it!!

We talked about how Claire, her brother and her sister cleaned up on disco dancing medals as children and how she went on to found a company called Diverse City, and Extraordinary Bodies for circus artists. 

During lockdown she became a sea swimmer and last year she created a large-scale sea choreography he is just about to launch a theatre called SW!M in Swanage in Dorset. 

Her upcoming project is a musical called ‘Waldo’s Circus of Magic & Terror’ at the Bristol Old Vic. It is a new musical set in 1933 and is based based on true stories about how circuses smuggled people with disabilities out of Germany during WW2. 

Claire has a teenage daughter Scarlett who helped her coordinate the WhatsApp group for SW!M and who Claire feels very fortunate to have spent extra time with, because of lockdown.

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anna Haugh is an Irish chef at the top of her game, who runs her own restaurants in Chelsea and Dublin, and who you may know as one of the judges on 

Masterchef and as a regular on Saturday Kitchen. 

It was on Saturday Kitchen last year that I first met Anna, when her baby boy Oisin was just 8 weeks old. I was struck by her absolute joy in motherhood and when we spoke recently I learned how Oisin was a much longed for IVF baby.  Anna told me she is generally good at appreciating the here and now, and about the thrill that she gets to this day when she walks past her little boy’s blue coat hanging in the hallway, reminding her that she is now a mum.  

Anna also told me how much she has always loved her stepson Henry, now 18, who she first met when he was 11, and how it was Henry who chose her little son's first and middle names.

She also shared that she may be only 5ft 4, but she studied body language to learn how to give direction in kitchens where she’s often surrounded by men who are all physically much bigger than her, without confrontation. Her top tip is that you own the space where you stand, no matter how tall or short you are. And she really believes in kindness in the kitchen.

I love Anna’s ability to see the positive side of life and the way her personality comes out in the atmosphere of her restaurant and on screen. I also love the sound of the cake-loving little Oisin!

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a space scientist and science communicator and presenter of The Sky at Night and the BBC's GCSE Science Live! lectures. She also presented the series Out of this World, on CBBC during lockdown with her daughter, Lauren, now 11.

Maggie had her daughter when she was 42 and carried on doing science talks around the world, often with her little girl on stage with her, for the first 4 years of Lauren's life. I particularly marvelled at the Royal Institute lecture I found on YouTube of Maggie tackling the subject of Careers in Science while Lauren sat happily in a sling on her hip, occasionally chewing a microphone cover or snuggling into her mum, while Maggie did the ultimate 'spinning plates' of continuing to deliver her science lecture.

She has had a lifelong desire to get into space, something that has spurred her on through A levels, University and her career in space science, including working on the detection of landmines and on the James Webb telescope.  

It was fascinating talking to Maggie about her childhood including coping with dyslexia and going to 13 different schools in 14 years during her parents turbulent divorce.  

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

We had a lot of giggles, as well as touching on some incredibly mighty subjects...you know, life, the universe and everything! I loved hearing about the scale of the universe; what might be out there still to be discovered; and how Maggie is hoping the current 'Battle of the Billionaires' to get into space might help her and her daughter fulfill their dream of space travel at last.  

Maggie's enthusiasm and glass-half-full attitude is catching! I came away thinking about aliens, white guys in togas, and wanting to eat a lot more toast! And, at last, I think I've met someone who talks as fast as me!

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Sara Davies is the warm-hearted, fast-talking, hard-working entrepreneur you will know from Dragons Den. She still lives in the same village in County Durham where she grew up and is married to Simon who she started dating when she was 15. They have two boys: Oliver and Charlie.

We met up at my house a couple of hours after her weekly QVC appearance and we talked about looking in the camera during zoom conversations, being 100% present with whatever you’re doing, her early struggles with breastfeeding, and her Dad’s questioning as to why she is still working so hard now she has a family.

We also talked Strictly! About how she had to learn to let down her guard, and wiggle her bum; how she fitted in her dance training by starting it every day at 6am, much to Aljaz’s horror; and how ‘Uncle Aljaz ’ has become part of the family. 

We agreed it’s never good to ask people to when they’re planning to start a family. 

And I tried to flog her an idea she’d actually just come up with herself - and I have the proof here on tape, that she told me “I’m in”! 

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist, artist and writer who has a weekly agony aunt column in the Observer. She has written the only book on parenting that I feel speaks to me, and that I recommend to other people. It's called: 'The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did)'. Her big messages are that talking to your children about feelings is key, and that all feelings are acceptable, so don't shut them down. I agreed with her when she said: how well you get on with people is more important than how well you do in your GCSEs.

I met up with Philippa (and her mischievous cat Kevin) in mid December at the beautiful Georgian house she shares with her husband, the recently knighted artist, Sir Grayson Perry. We sat in their living room with the fire going, and part way through the conversation she pointed out that the fireplace is a stucco art piece about fertility, made by Philippa herself, when she was trying to get pregnant. 31 years on their daughter Flo, also an artist, has recently illustrated Philippa's graphic novel 'Couch Fiction', about the world of psychotherapy.

Philippa shared how, as a child, her nanny had been her most signifiant other, but when she was sent to boarding school aged 4 she never saw her again, which deeply upset her. This experience impacted Philippa's style of parenting, and she didn't want any outside help, retraining as a psychotherapist when her daughter was 18 months old, and only working while her daughter was at school.

Today she divides her time between writing and art. She talked about how exciting it is to have, as Virginia Woolf described, a room of one's own, dedicated to creating art. 

We talked about teaching children to communicate, and when we touched on the subject of sibling rivalry, Philippa got me to do some role-play with her. She showed me how getting the children to brainstorm, to solve a dispute, is so much better than a parent taking what they think is a short cut, and deciding how a quarrel should be resolved. I learned a lot. And at the end of our incredibly informative and helpful chat, I had a proposition for her: "How do you feel about moving into our house for a while...just for a few years...to observe and help us sort everything out...?! Kevin can come too!"

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cerys Matthews is a Welsh singer, presenter and writer. I first became aware of her when I was starting out with my first band Theaudience. She was then with her band Catatonia, which was big - and part of the Cool Cymru trend. After Cerys left that band she went on a voyage of musical discovery while living in a cabin in the woods near Tennessee - an experience she draws on to this day when curating her radio shows. Her excellent 6Music show is a big part of our Sundays. We love it.

I spoke to Cerys at the beginning of December when she had just launched her new children's book. It's a bite-size take on Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milkwood', which she wants to bring to a new audience, namely little children.

Cerys's three children are teenagers now, and we talked about mothering in the teen years, compared to the full-on baby and toddler years, which led her to share her story of her worst ever parenting experience... on a long-haul flight.

Cerys talked about coming back to the UK form America, to bring her children up. She said it took her 6 years in America to appreciate Britain, including the BBC.

As it was early December, we mused on how we all try and create the perfect Christmas Day, based on family traditions started in Christmases past. We agreed we can't be all things to all people at all times - and Cerys said that next time she's coming back as a man...with a wife! 

Cerys also shared that she's not drawn to beach holidays but loves an adventure, and she told me about her life-changing trip to Everest base camp which she, her husband and her two youngest boys did 3 years ago, to celebrate her 50th birthday. Her enthusiasm for it was so infectious I'm going to look into it myself, especially as a) she said the children loved it - and b) it sounded like it involved lots of stops for chips!

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.