Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Details, episodes & analysis

Kirsten Lane is a freelance music supervisor who negotiates the deals that make it possible to put music into films, TV and adverts. She was the music supervisor for Saltburn and so that is how we met. She is now part of Murder on the Dancefloor’s journey and helped make its inclusion in the film’s soundtrack possible, naked dance and all! 

We talked about the importance of music in changing the atmosphere, and she sees it almost as another character on screen.

Kirsten told me how she had made her career work, alongside bringing up two children, often as a single parent. Sometimes she had to fit her freelance work into the little pockets of 20 minutes that you have when your children are babies, and then late into the night when they were asleep. 

We realised we have shared the same experience over the past months when Murder has become unexpectedly popular again - both Kirsten’s teenage children and mine have been momentarily impressed by their mothers, when they’ve heard Murder being played on Tik Tok and by their friends. What a wild ride! 

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.

Anne Twist is a first time writer and a long-term philanthropist who has two very succesful 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. 

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.

Michelle Kennedy is a tech entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is CEO of Peanut App, and mum to two young children, Finlay and Nuala.

Michelle started her working life as a corporate lawyer and became interested in tech when she worked for Badoo and then Bumble. 

She set up Peanut after she gave birth to her first child and felt lonely and isolated. 

Peanut is an online community for women, as Michelle says, at 'seismic stages' of their life including fertility, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause. It's a place where women can come and speak honestly with other women going through the same stage of life as them, and she feels it acts as a social barometer of which issues are important to women.

I certainly wish it had been around when I had my first baby. And I look forward to watching Michelle's plans unfold for creating a space for young girls to talk about their challenges in their teen years... Little me could have done with that 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.

It’s the final episode in this series of Spinning Plates! Wow what a lovely group of guests and my 30th is no exception. Meet Tina Crawford, who is an artist who I got to know through her 

embroidery. She used the Kitchen Disco as a subject for part of a huge piece she started working on as lockdown began. Its an incredible piece and talks about how we are all connected - hasn’t so much about this last year been about the importance of connection? The work is about to start life in its new home at the Science Museum. Tina has a 13-year-old son and she claims to have the best

husband in the world. We talked about having a child through IVF,

being a disabled parent and how people lie about being happy in

postnatal classes. Turns out we met once when I was a teenager and Tina found me aloof, but hopefully my superb tea making skills have changed her mind now. 😊

We also had the additional excitement of my cat Titus that kept jumping on the

table where we were talking! He’s a bit annoying that way, but I love him none the less. 🐈

Xxxxxxx

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Anna Whitehouse is a journalist, author and radio presenter and the

founder of Mother Pukka, 'a platform for people who happen to be

parents'. She is a long-term campaigner in the fight for flexible

working for everyone.

We talked about the concept of family and how you can get trapped into

believing that 2.4 children and a white picket fence equals happiness;

we discussed flexible working hours and how other countries do it

better (yes I'm talking about the Netherlands and Sweden again!) and

we agreed that it is time to end the 1950s hapless dad trope - or as

she put it, "men don't want to just spunk and leave, they want to

parent!"

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

Giovanna Fletcher is a writer, presenter and blogger who has a hugely

successful podcast Happy Mum Happy Baby. When we chatted I asked about

the course which took her to marrying her childhood sweetheart, Tom

Fletcher, she also told me how her three boys loved watching her on

I'm a Celebrity and we compared notes on how many people ask her, as

the mum of sons, whether she really wanted a girl! Aaaaghhh!

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This week I talk to stand up and soon-to be-published writer Ellie

Taylor. She went from being completely disinterested in children to,

now that she has a little girl herself, finding new mums 'like catnip'

and striking up conversations with them whenever she can. We talked

about having a baby when you're not really maternal, performing on

stage when heavily pregnant, and writing in a pandemic. Her first book

'My Child and other Mistakes' is out in July.

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

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

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