Episode 87: Claire Hodgson
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2023
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Lusbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to |
| 0:09.6 | to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. |
| 0:14.0 | I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, |
| 0:20.2 | so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:22.6 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, |
| 0:24.6 | but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. |
| 0:27.6 | I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. |
| 0:31.6 | Welcome to spinning plates. |
| 0:35.6 | Hey, you find me in the kitchen and I'm seizing the moment because I've realised it's quiet in here. |
| 0:43.2 | It's Saturday afternoon and last night we hosted Kit's birthday sleepover. |
| 0:52.1 | It was a joint party, him and his friend Rory, and he's known since |
| 0:55.1 | primary. So we had an extra seven teenage boys to find somewhere to sleep. So I basically |
| 1:03.3 | cleared out the whole of our sit here on the floor and then just put six beds, like |
| 1:07.8 | inflatable beds, all like squished like on the floor and then two on the ciphers. |
| 1:14.8 | And let's face it, sleep wasn't really the end of the game. |
| 1:17.3 | I think they maybe got 40 minutes. |
| 1:19.5 | But actually they were really well behaved and really sweet. |
| 1:22.0 | So it was actually really nice. |
| 1:24.5 | And we now don't have any birthdays in house until till April so yeah feel like yay done done a good |
| 1:31.5 | birthday because teenage birthdays can be a bit tricky but I think kind of got in under the wire |
| 1:35.6 | I think 14 is probably the last one you can do where they're not really that bothered about the fact |
| 1:40.5 | they're not drinking maybe 15 I don't know if I'm speaking for my own |
... |
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