Getting festive in Sophie Ellis Bextor’s very well-known kitchen

The singer’s quirky home is all prepared for Christmas (Image: Ben Anders)

If there’s a extra well-known kitchen in the entire of the UK than Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s, it may solely be Mary Berry’s… and that’s in all probability only a studio set-up.

Sophie’s Kitchen Disco movies, the place she and her youngsters gown on as much as get on down – with Sophie singing, her youngsters dancing and Instagram camerawork in every single place – have been one of many large hits of each lockdowns. A lot so that there’s now an album and a full Kitchen Disco tour deliberate for 2021.

‘I positively didn’t realise my kitchen would turn into so well-known,’ laughs Sophie, stay from, nicely, her kitchen, clearly.

‘However then there are quite a lot of issues this yr which have stunned me. I believed there was a superb likelihood folks had been going to mock me for placing on my sparkly catsuit.’ Sophie says the kitchen discos gave her and her husband, Richard Jones, bass participant with soft-rock band The Feeling, one thing to deal with.

It additionally gave them the sensation that they’d carried out an precise gig afterwards, even when it was really simply half an hour on a Friday stolen in between doing family chores and corralling youngsters. ‘It was a little bit of escapism, cathartic and good to have a group to share it with,’ she explains.

She was nervous about how folks would react to her home on-line (Image: Ben Anders)

Sophie admits she was initially nervous about studying feedback on the Instagram posts the place the exhibits went out stay.

‘As a result of it was my actual home, my actual youngsters and my actual feelings, I believe I’d have been actually delicate if folks had been too private of their critique,’ she says.

‘However I believe our home grew to become a medium for all the good things that may come from music and enjoyable once you’re not really feeling that enjoyable in your day-to-day life. As a result of we weren’t. There was quite a lot of stress and quite a lot of stress however music has at all times been the factor we do round right here to make ourselves really feel higher. However lots of people do, as nicely. I didn’t invent kitchen discos.’

As for the paraphernalia of the kitchen disco – the bunting, the smoke machines, the mirror ball and the lights – that was already in place. ‘We didn’t put something in,’ she chuckles, ‘which is slightly revealing.’

At this time, although, Sophie is giving us a peek inside the remainder of the household house, as she begins to set the scene for Christmas. She is bubbly, enjoyable and her super-sparkly character shines by means of in the remainder of the home, too.

So with that set-up, that vitality degree and so many prepared disco-ers already in-house, how do you ramp issues up for the Christmas season? ‘Oh, there’s at all times extra you are able to do,’ she laughs. ‘I discovered myself this morning shopping for tinsel as a result of I really like a ornament and get very enthusiastic about something metallic or brightly colored.

‘I’ve obtained an entire loft stuffed with favorite baubles. Is that ordinary? Oh, and on Christmas Day, you already know these snow-making machines you have got within the backyard? Nicely, that finds its manner into the room in some unspecified time in the future.’

As for her 5 boys, starting from almost two to 16 in age, they weren’t a lot prepared contributors as largely oblivious contributors.

‘The youngsters weren’t actually conscious that anybody was watching anyway,’ she says. ‘And that’s why their feelings are extremely pure from fights to boredom to over-excitement and all the things else.

Adorning for Christmas is a giant deal in Sophie’s home (Image: Ben Anders)

‘Typically they’ll come, typically they like to do one thing else. And bear in mind nobody’s had a celebration, so it’s a superb excuse to have a little bit of an event. And should you can’t have a bloody disco at Christmas…’

Plans are nonetheless within the works – ‘issues are very a lot last-minute round right here’ – however one factor that must be organised is the post-disco cocktail.

‘Richard’s an excellent mixologist so we do have correct negronis and cosmopolitans after,’ she says. ‘And that’s the closest we’ve come to an evening out, to be trustworthy.’

Sophie’s perspective to her house is it’s there to have enjoyable with. ‘I need a home that’s used and I’m not that treasured about issues: I need folks to take a seat on the sofas and play with the toys however I need it to be good,’ she says.

‘I say to the youngsters, should you put love into the house, it’ll feed you again. It’ll make you are feeling good. I don’t need wanton vandalism however a inventive home that may take the feelings of what’s occurring…’

Sophie is well-up for large Christmases however doesn’t put strain on it to be good (Image: Ben Anders)

A traditional Christmas includes Sophie, Richard, the boys, and a basic ‘scooping up’ of relations: mum Janet (Ellis, the Eighties’ Blue Peter presenter), brother, sister, different halves.

‘It may be something as much as 25. However we’re fairly good at mass catering and it’s enjoyable. I really like Christmas, I’ve very nice constructive associations and love getting the true tree and adorning it, the roaring fireplace, mulled wine, martinis and the remainder of it. I’m nicely up for it.’

There have been some critical Christmases across the time her mother and father had been splitting up however from across the age of eight, when her half-brother was born, ‘it was actually constructive’. She would alternate between her mum’s and pop’s, yr on yr.

‘As a result of I couldn’t have all my household in a single place at one time I obtained taught that Christmas was a season, slightly than only a day,’ she says. ‘The advantage of that’s it stops you placing an excessive amount of strain on Christmas itself to be good, as a result of it doesn’t at all times work like that.

‘We are able to put ourselves underneath quite a lot of strain to ship an concept that’s unattainable. So long as you’re with the folks you want, good issues occur and there are songs, decorations and traditions… what extra do you want?’

Take heed to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s festive Kitchen Disco on December 31, 7-9pm on BBC Radio 2. Her biggest hits Songs From The Kitchen Disco and podcast Spinning Plates are out now.

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