City Life's David Sue puts on his best RP for toff totty Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

There was one crucial point during the virulent Posh versus 'Real Posh' (® The Sun) chart war of Summer 2000, when Sophie Ellis-Bextor, barely a day over 20, realised some people just take this pop lark far too seriously.

"It was when she and Beckham were doing some fan signing at Woolworths in Manchester [we think she means Warrington, readers] and Dane Bowers was making remarks to the press," she chides. "By that point, the Truesteppers camp may have taken it all a bit too seriously. I suppose I could have said that I had a boyfriend that played for Chelsea and a baby boy called Peckham but it wasn't worth it. It's only a game!"

If that's the game plan - or more lack of one - that's underlined Sophie's arrival then it's knowingly worked. For a good few years, she was too busy putting the fizzle and grammatically-tricky sophistication back into NME world, as a member of indie might-have-beens theaudience, to actually realise Top Of The Pops needed her more. So thank heavens for Spiller and Groovejet supplying the meat for what became the most unlikely, yet enduringly great, summer pop smash in recent memory. And extract Sophie from indie in the process.

"That sounds rather grubby," she frowns. "Indie seems to aspire to ordinariness. But being a pop star is camp. It should all be a bit bigger than life. Pop music should be aiming as high as it can."

Her commitment to that distinction arrived with debut solo album Read My Lips, ripped apart by the press but carried with enough steely longevity - thanks to a brace of top-notch singles, 'Take Me Home' and 'Murder On The Dancefloor' - to make those aims actually pay off. Like a more rounded hybrid of Spiller's disco-pop flair with her own wide-eyed roue (today she has been mostly listening to Bjork - but thinks Will is infinitely better than Gareth) it's far better than a record featuring songwriting ventures with Alex James from Blur should really be allowed to be. "Even when I was 16 and in theaudience I was doing pop music, sophisticated pop, that sensibility was always there."

Speaking just a week before her first fully-fledged UK tour, her regal, seasoned persona seems amplified after a good year of being in the spotlight. Of course Sophie is, lest we forget, Posh, the woman who single-handedly introduced the word 'darncefloor' into the pop lexicon. Famously daughter of sometime Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis, even her imaginary school-friends were named Charlotte and Emily. As you must do in these situations: blame the parents.

"The 'Real Posh' thing was all my mum's fault," she laughs. "During the whole Spiller and Groovejet thing, the media kept hassling my mum. So that was her way of spicing things up."

Didn't that bother you?

"No. People have got a lot of affection for my mum. When I was younger though, it was a totally different story. People used to give me loads of hassle about it. It was quite tricky as there was an Against Sophie Club at school because of my mum. It was awful."

Still, despite the Anti-Sophie fraternity, bitchy Posh Spice wars and even bitchier backbiting from the likes of Robbie Williams ("I thought his comments were actually quite funny"), recognition is still something that warms the soul in the Ellis-Bextor household. "I'm just really looking forward to hitting the road again. This is the first time I've done a tour on my own. You do feel an extra responsibility but it's what I've always worked towards."

Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays the Parr Hall, Warrington on April 23.

Tweet