Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Jake Shears to bring in 2025 in style with BBC performance

Queer music fans’ favourite Sophie Ellis-Bextor and gay star Jake Shears will welcome in 2025 in style with a New Year’s Eve performance on BBC One.

On the back of a successful year, thanks to Saltburn sending her 2001 track “Murder on the Dancefloor” flying back up the charts, the queen of the Kitchen Disco will host a concert featuring a host of famous faces.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s NYE Disco will air on BBC One from 11.30pm on Tuesday (31 December), before cutting away briefly at midnight for the traditional fireworks display and chimes of Big Ben from London, then carry on with more performances.

Ellis-Bextor will be joined on stage by Scissor Sisters frontman Shears, Jessie Ware, The Last Dinner Party’s guitarist Emily Roberts and the MDL Singers.

Reflecting on 2024, Ellis-Bextor told the BBC that the success of Saltburn led to her playing more shows in one year than ever before: 110.

“Murder on the Dancefloor”, features in Emerald Fennell’s comedy thriller about class with the track playing in the background as Barry Keoghan’s character, Oliver, dances naked through the sprawling country house of his rich pal Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi).

“I’d roughly read something about how it was going to be used, I hadn’t obviously got the full scope of the storyline up to that point,” she said when clips featuring the song went viral. “It was brilliant. It’s so beautifully shot. The script is bouncy and fun and sharp and witty, then you get someone dancing full-frontal nude to my song.”

The song spent five weeks at number two in the UK charts while in the US Ellis-Bextor charted on the Billboard Top 100 for the first time.

“There is so much to reflect on. It’s an extraordinary thing to get to my stage in my career and still be doing new things, new excitement. So, I really wanted to grab hold of that,” the singer said.

And she described her new TV show as a career highlight. “New Year’s Eve is such a big deal, and I don’t take it lightly if people are choosing to spend it with us,” she told the BBC.

“So, I want to make sure we create the ultimate New Year’s Eve party. I want to give this last boost of escapist fun. I mean, look at how many disco balls we’ve got here. We’ve got them all. A monopoly.”

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