Famous author Kate Mosse has decided that now is the perfect time to launch her first one woman show Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World, which she is bringing to Chippy Theatre.
“Well, you’ve got to be brave, haven’t you? I love being a writer, but you can’t just think: ‘I’ll keep doing the thing that I’ve always done.’ You’ve got to push yourself and keep trying,” she explains.
“I want people to feel inspired, empowered and delighted to have spent the evening in the company of so many trailblazers from the past”
Considering the multi-million selling author, (think bestselling The Burning Chambers Series, Languedoc Trilogy, The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter), is translated into 38 languages, published in more than 40 countries, was awarded an OBE in 2012, founded The Women’s Prize for Fiction and named Woman of the Year, you’d think she already had enough on her plate.
But having founded the global campaign #WomanInHistory in 2021 to honour, celebrate and promote women’s achievements throughout history and from every corner of the world, it’s something she is equally passionate about.
So, her new live show of her best-selling book, Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World, aims to rewrite history, with women in it!
“I’ve never done anything like this before so, of course, I’m a little daunted,” she says, ‘but I am going to give it my best shot because I want people to come out of the theatre going, “Oh my God, I never knew that!”
“most of us would like to believe in a world of fairness, and it is profoundly unfair that many women’s achievements have just been written out of history”
Telling the life stories of the most interesting, inspiring and astonishing women, from Joan of Arc to Florence Nightingale, Agatha Christie, Mongolian princess Khutlan, Rosa Parks, notorious 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Reid as well as Beatrix Potter and the legendary English footballer, Lily Parr, some of the stories are tragic, some hilarious, and some make you gasp out loud.
So is she nervous? “Well, will anybody come?” she asks. “I’m not a celebrity, I’m not an actor, so, I have nerves about that and not letting everyone down. But once I’m in the wings I will love it. The show must go on, and that’s where the magic happens! But this time, it’s going to be up to me to deliver it!”
“together, we can change this”
So what can we expect? “The show is a love letter to history really,” she explains. “I want to unravel the way history gets written and for the audience to feel a part of that conversation. But more than anything, it’s a celebration. I want people to feel inspired, empowered and delighted to have spent the evening in the company of so many trailblazers from the past.”
So why have so many women disappeared from history? “Deliberate erasure, because most history was written by men, because achievements by women – painters, inventors, scientists, writers – have often been misattributed to the men who worked alongside them, or came after them and finally, if women didn’t have someone fighting to keep their reputation centre stage, then their works disappeared. But, together, we can change this.”
“if women didn’t have someone fighting to keep their reputation centre stage, then their works disappeared”
“For example, did you know that the great scientist Mary Somerville, who gave her name to Somerville College, Oxford, is the reason why we have the word “scientist”? Before her, the phrase was “men of science”, so the word “scientist” was created for Somerville because she was brilliant, but she was not a man! How else could they describe her?”
“I think most of us would like to believe in a world of fairness, and it is profoundly unfair that many women’s achievements have just been written out of history.”
“So I hope the audience will leave inspired to search out even more women’s stories and that a fab night in the theatre will be the beginning of a conversation for everybody. Let’s get the conversation started.
Kate Mosse: Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built The World will be at the Chipping Norton Theatre on March 2. https://www.chippingnortontheatre.com/whats-on/kate-mosse-warrior-queens-and-quiet-revolutionaries
