Cornwall


<p>International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women as well as being a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. Here at Muddy Cornwall we are marking the day once again with an interview series of inspiring women across the Duchy, celebrating women’s achievements and how they are inspiring others to be included, to foster a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment. <a href="https://cornwall.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/life/people/">You can read the rest of our series of interviews here</a>, as well as find all our previous ones.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-1000x667.jpeg" alt="Rebecca Mordan Scary Little Girls Cornwall" class="wp-image-33147" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-1000x667.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan.jpeg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tell-me-a-bit-about-yourself-your-background-and-what-you-do-and-how-you-came-to-do-this"><strong>Tell me a bit about yourself, your background and what you do – and how you came to do this?</strong></h3>



<p>I’m an actor, writer, director and producer and I founded and co-run feminist production hub <a href="https://scarylittlegirls.co.uk/">Scary Little Girls</a>.&nbsp; I have no idea how I came to want to be an actor, which is my first love, it’s not in my family, no one I know did it when I was growing up.&nbsp; But I just always knew it was who I was, like having brown hair and big front teeth, my name was Rebecca and I just was an actor, it was what I was going to do when I grew up.</p>



<p>How I came to run my company was born out of having an amazing time with other women getting a lot of stuff done creatively and politically at Uni as part of my students union’s Women’s Committee, and then having the most horrendous time being bullied for three years at the drama school I had fought tooth and nail to get into and turned out to a hot bed of misogyny and sexism.&nbsp; I just came out thinking, I’ve got to create a working environment where creatives can flourish, artists are safe and we change the narrative so &nbsp;women and girls see themselves represented as the driving force of ace stories.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tell-me-about-a-recent-achievement-or-something-you-d-like-to-highlight-nbsp"><strong>Tell me about a recent achievement or something you’d like to highlight?</strong>&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Last year we received one of the Shared Prosperity Fund Good Growth Awards and it’s allowed us to create a really exciting programme of touring and community engagement all around Cornwall and to expand our core team to support all this delivery.&nbsp; I know this sounds a bit dry, but it means we have a really inclusive bunch of gals working with us, a really wide variety of ages, backgrounds and skill sets that is broadening our approaches and our reach.&nbsp; </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Cornwall-Scary-Little-Girls-1000x667.jpeg" alt="Rebecca Mordan Scary Little Girls Cornwall" class="wp-image-33178" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Cornwall-Scary-Little-Girls-1000x667.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Cornwall-Scary-Little-Girls-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Cornwall-Scary-Little-Girls-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Cornwall-Scary-Little-Girls.jpeg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>And we are doing such fun programming, I think there’s something for everyone coming up this year – menopausal and want to laugh, cry and share the experience with other women? Come along to our Queenagers cabaret. Want something current and political but with wit, songs and vulva cupcakes? Check out our Riot Showgrrls Club.&nbsp; Want to enjoy feminist folk, spoken word and circus? Then we’ll see you at our Mayven Festival in May with performers Frankie Armstrong, Angelina Morrison, Claire Ingleheart and Flo Perlin.&nbsp; </p>



<p>And on top of that later in the year we’ll be touring beaches, playing The Minack and transforming a caravan into an interactive interview and sharing space that will combine picture book beauty with audio and tech…it’s a really exciting year for us!</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-do-you-your-team-do-to-inspire-inclusion-in-cornwall"><strong>What do you/your team do to inspire inclusion in Cornwall?</strong></h3>



<p>We centre women in our casting, programming and developing so that audiences see a variety of fabulous female actors in lots of different situations and roles.&nbsp;&nbsp;For 20 years, SLG has addressed the gender imbalance in the arts, celebrating and supporting female artists at a national, international and a Cornish level, telling stories of hidden histories to diverse audiences. </p>



<p>We are the only organisation dedicated to this fusion of high-quality professional creativity and industry equality activism in Cornwall; one of the few in the UK. Promoting women&#8217;s creativity, providing them with well-paid, enriching working environments and allowing female audiences of all ages, backgrounds, shapes and colours to see themselves in their cultural narratives has been our commitment and passion for 20 years and runs throughout all our work.</p>



<p>We want women to see themselves represented in SLG&#8217;s work and SLG has no policy on age, size, colour or background that precludes professional artists for consideration for working with us. Our work celebrates women, tells their sides of the stories, creates spaces of unconditional love for women to experience and try to keep the connection between multi-generations of women and girls &#8211; maidens, mothers, mayvens and crones – so that the evolutionary work, learning and opportunity of the Web is not lost or broken.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-there-anything-else-in-your-industry-or-otherwise-that-you-d-like-to-see-in-cornwall-that-would-advance-the-inclusion-of-women"><strong>Is there anything else (in your industry or otherwise) that you’d like to see in Cornwall that would advance the inclusion of women?</strong></h3>



<p>In the live arts industry we need to break the unspoken but very thorough casting block that is placed on women based on what size they are, how they look and what age they are.&nbsp; We massively restrict women coming into the business by having outdated rules about what is an acceptable weight for actresses and how many roles we provide for them that place them in the centre of the story driving it, or just occupying space in plots that don’t just have them revolving around the lead male protagonists.&nbsp; As producers we need to trust that the larger percentage of most paying audiences are female and that great stories full of great women will sell, that there is in fact a very appetite for this work with the public.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-2-1000x667.jpeg" alt="Rebecca Mordan Scary Little Girls Cornwall posing with one leg up wearing a red high heel in the woods" class="wp-image-33148" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-2-1000x667.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-2-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-2-768x513.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/03/Rebecca-Mordan-2.jpeg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-do-you-have-any-role-models-who-are-they"><strong>Do you have any role models? Who are they?</strong></h3>



<p>Yes tons, because women inspire women and I’ve spent my life looking for and celebrating the heroines, female icons and unsung sisters around me…But my first thoughts today in relation to this questions are &#8211;</p>



<p><strong>Katherine Hepburn</strong>, love me some Golden Age of Hollywood and her talent with words and physicality on screen are amazing, how she used her sporting prowess to be a hilarious comedian (check out Pat and Mike for the ultimate example of this), her producing choices as she got established (Philadelphia Story was a genius move that got her off the Box Office Poison list and she fabulous in it), the fact she campaigned wearing trousers!&nbsp; And her quiet but consistent financial support of the victims of McCarthy black-listing, what a legend!</p>



<p><strong>Jacky Fleming</strong>, feminist satirist and brilliant writer of The Trouble With Women.&nbsp; Her books have been just ahead waiting for me all my life, saving me with her awesome ability to turn the outrages of a macho world on their head and show how laughable they are, whilst also acknowledging that they exist, god I love her!&nbsp; I fan-girled her into a friendship with me over the last few years and I think the day she drew a picture of me for some SLG publicity, well basically I thought I’d died and gone to feminist heaven!&nbsp; </p>



<p>Also, my mum gave me my first comic book by Jacky (called Be a Bloody Train Driver, I’m Going to be a Brain Surgeon, you see where I love her?!) and my mum was SUCH a role model.&nbsp; She Took me to Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, she got arrested for sitting in front of Thatcher’s car, and she was a font of fierce love, wit and wisdom.&nbsp; I miss her everyday.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-your-favourite-cornish-beach-view"><strong>What’s your favourite Cornish beach / view?</strong></h3>



<p>Tough call, because is there anywhere so spoilt for choice on beautiful, inspiring views? I don’t think so…but I think I have to say, if I could only ever see one view in Cornwall again – Goddess forbid! &#8211; &nbsp;the view from my childhood bed room in Falmouth is probably going to be what I’d go for.&nbsp; </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/09/Flushing-from-Falmouth-1000x667.jpg" alt="flushing from falmouth" class="wp-image-31900" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/09/Flushing-from-Falmouth-1000x667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/09/Flushing-from-Falmouth-800x533.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/09/Flushing-from-Falmouth-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/09/Flushing-from-Falmouth-788x525.jpg 788w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/cornwall/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2023/09/Flushing-from-Falmouth.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>We are on the Greenbank overlooking the river Fal with Flushing’s houses, fields, woods and boats opposite.&nbsp; Looking left and you’ll see the river running into Penyrn; right, and the river opens out onto the sea with the docks, the castles, the sky and the endless water… My mum died at home in her room down the hall from mine looking at that view and my heart in my eyes when I look out at it.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-do-you-do-in-cornwall-to-make-the-most-of-living-here"><strong>What do you do in Cornwall to make the most of living here?</strong></h3>



<p><a href="https://scarylittlegirls.co.uk/whats-on/">Tour</a>! Honestly, one of my greatest loves is getting our work out into the communities and corners of this fascinating county and meeting all the characters in the audiences, village halls and venues.&nbsp; Thanks to everyone who comes to see us, puts our actors up, works with us to programme or making our work &#8211; Cornwall, you are a unique, talented and bloody brilliant motherland, thank you so much for having us!</p>


Muddy Meets: Rebecca Mordan, Artistic Director, Scary Little Girls

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