AUTHOR & PERFORMER KATE MOSSE TALKS ABOUT HER FORTHCOMING ONE-WOMAN THEATRE SHOW LABYRINTH LIVE, UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE LABYRINTH
Q: What inspired you to take your Labyrinth Live: Unlocking the Secrets of the Labyrinth show on the road?
A: 2025 is the 20th anniversary of the UK publication of Labyrinth, and it is a book that changed my life. It meant it was possible for me to be a full-time writer. Nobody becomes a novelist thinking: ‘This is how I’ll make a living’. I was already in my 40s and had published four books before, but I was lucky. Labyrinth became a global super-seller and has now sold something in the region of 8 million copies in thirty-seven different languages. So, I want to say ‘thank you’ to all the readers that made this happen and celebrate the anniversary with them.
Q: What format will the show take?
A: It’s an immersive, atmospheric, dramatic two-hour piece of theatre, as opposed to a book talk, with lights, music, video, film, special effects, props and photographs.
With Unlocking the Secrets of the Labyrinth, from the minute the audience comes into the auditorium, they will feel a shiver down their spine because they will feel they are in medieval France. I hope they will experience that sense of the mysteries hidden in the landscape of southwest France, they will hear the music of the cloister and the sounds of the Pyrenees.
I’ll be sharing my inspirations behind the story of the writing of Labyrinth, from the very first moment I set foot in Carcassonne in winter 1989 to the inspirational moments of climbing the mountain of Montségur in the Pyrenees six or seven years later and coming face to face with the image of the woman who would become my lead character, Alaïs, though not knowing who she was. I’ll be talking about how the novel took shape, how my characters came to life, about the beautiful landscape of Languedoc – we’ll show a few of the pictures from the filming of the Labyrinth mini-series in France and South Africa, starring Tom Felton (Harry Potter, Planet of the Apes), Vanessa Kirby (The Crown, Mission Impossible), Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Sebastian Stan (Captain America).
Q: What other areas will you be covering in Labyrinth Live?
A: As well as the story behind the imaginary story, I’ll be shining a spotlight on the real history that underpins the novel: the Nazi Grail hunters and Grail legends; the history of the Christian sect called the Cathars – who they were, why they were persecuted, and how they were completely wiped out; about labyrinths themselves, which became very significant in Christianity in medieval Europe; about hieroglyphs and ancient Egypt, and the links between those ancient religions and the Cathar religion. I’ve also dug out plenty of original research which didn’t find its way into the novel, so audiences will get a few unique fragments of historical insight – not least, the story of the final downfall of the Cathars (which happens after my novel has ended). In other words, it will be a mixture of familiar and brand new, perfect for anyone who loved the novel and would like to know more.
Q: What else will you be addressing?
A: As a bit of fun, I’ll share a few stories about life on the road in 2005 and 2006 promoting Labyrinth – for example, how the novel was viewed in different countries – from Japan to Norway, Germany to China, France to Brazil. The show is the story of a novel, but also a show about how history can inspire fiction that speaks beyond one period in history to all readers.
Q: What do you love about performing one-woman theatre shows?
A: It was wonderful to start a new career as a performer in my 60s! I’m a great believer in having a go. I was brought up by my wonderful parents always to have a go, so when I was approached about doing Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries as I show, I thought; ‘Well, what have you got to lose!’ I was excited by the challenge, terrified too, of course. I do a lot of public speaking and hosting of events, but a show is utterly different. When you are giving a book talk or a lecture, you stand at a lectern for 45 minutes, or are interviewed by someone else, then take questions, and it’s done. A theatre show is completely different and there is so much that could go wrong: lighting cues, sound cues, finding yourself in the wrong part of the stage, dropping a prop …
Q: How did you feel before your first ever theatre show?
A: I’m confident and experienced, I’m used to standing up in front of hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people to give a speech. But, when the music started for the first preview of Warrior Queens, I was standing in the wings and for the first time in my career I thought: ‘I can’t go on, I can’t do this.’ But then, of course, the music finished and there was no choice. On I went I went on stage, and the magic happened because it’s the audience that brings that magic. After that first time, my nerves calmed and, as the tour went on, I realised I absolutely loved performing.
Q: What do you love about it so much?
A: What makes live theatre special is that it is a unique show every night. For two-and-a-half hours you are part of something with the audience that will never be exactly the same again. For the duration of the show, from half past seven till 10 o’clock, you are all in it together. Hearing people’s applause at the end, sometimes even a standing ovation, the warmth and energy you get from performing is just like nothing else.
Q: Are you passionate about the theatre?
A: I love theatre, that moment sitting in the stalls when the house lights go down and you are full of anticipation for what is to come, there is nothing like it. I write plays and go to the theatre whenever I can. Starting this new career at the age of 62 was very exciting – it’s another reason I decided to do a second one-woman show. It is exhilarating.
Q: How do you prepare for a theatre show?
A: The key thing is to pace yourself. My default setting is to fill every minute of the day with writing, editing, doing other work. But what I learned was that when you’re on stage every night, and you are travelling to a new venue every day, you must treat the afternoon as down-time because your real work will be six till midnight.
Q: Will there be any merchandise for this tour?
A: There certainly will. There is a beautiful new 20th Anniversary Edition of Labyrinth, with a new introduction by Sir Ian Rankin, and there will be a tour t-shirt. Watch this space for more information!
Q: Is ‘Labyrinth Live’ also a way of celebrating the success of the book with your readers?
A: Absolutely. It’s readers who made this happen. The novel’s success wasn’t just down to brilliant publishing and a great marketing campaign, but the generosity of readers buying and borrowing the book. I was inspired by the fact that when I was on tour with Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries, every night someone would come up with a copy of Labyrinth and share their stories of what the novel meant to them. It was very humbling. One young man told me how he taken his girlfriend to Carcassonne, where the novel is set, and proposed on the battlements! It was a reminder of how it was a special novel to so many people, so the idea of celebrating with them is at the heart of the tour. One person even showed me a tattoo from a line from the novel on her arm …
Q: What sort of things do they have tattooed?
A: Certain phrases from the book have become quite iconic. The lead, oldest character, Audric Baillard (played by John Hurt in the television mini-series) speaks the line: “Pas a pas se va luenh” which means ‘Step by step, we make our way.’ Some people have it tattooed in English, and other times in the original Occitan.
Q: Why do you think that Labyrinth has enjoyed such success?
A: It’s not for me to say, really. That’s up to the readers. But there were a couple of things that made a difference looking back. A certain book called The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown came out the year before Labyrinth. That, of course, is also a Grail legend story, as is Labyrinth, and at first I was devastated. I’d been working on my novel for ten years and I worried that, suddenly, someone else had got in first. The opposite was true. The Da Vinci Code was a massive global seller and set up an appetite for that kind of mystery inspired by ancient legends. Added to that, a lot of men who had not picked up a novel in many, many years read The Da Vinci Code. The stats bear that out. So, when my novel came out in 2025, there were readers wanting more! Then I had a brilliant review in the Guardian that said: ‘Labyrinth is The Da Vinci Code for girls with A Levels’ and we sold a lot of copies off the back of that. Readers wanted something in the same kind of area, but with more historical research and shining a spotlight on women’s stories. Labyrinth is a novel told between two women – Alaïs in 13th century Carcassonne and Alice in the modern day – and it asks different sorts of questions.
Q: What other reasons were there behind the novel’s success?
A: Having had a little house in the shadow of the medieval city walls of Carcassonne since 1989, and all of my fiction is inspired by landscape and the sense of being there, I know that many readers found that very important. So many people tell me they have been to Carcassonne after reading Labyrinth, so that literary tourism was also a key part of why readers took the novel to their heart. Every time we go back, I’m greeted by the same wonderful view and smell of beeswax polish on our wooden stairs. It’s unchanged for more than thirty years.
Q: Why is it such a special part of the world?
A: Languedoc has everything: it has the mountains, the sea, the vineyards, the garrigue, the endless blue skies and the snow in winter. In Carcassonne itself, there is this overwhelming sense of history in every brick, every stone, the sense of the continuity of history right from the very earliest days, through the Roman period, all the way to the medieval period and then on.
Looking back, I think Carcassonne felt immediately familiar to me when we first arrived in 1989 because I come from a place like that myself – Chichester, in West Sussex. When I first set foot in Carcassonne, it reminded me of Chichester in that when you look up from street level, you see the old keystones, the dates carved on the walls, the chapels and churches that have stood there for centuries. In Chichester, as Carcassonne, there’s a really strong sense of place, as well as the knowledge that the essential spirit of that area of Languedoc has not really changed so much over thousands of years.
Q: What do you hope that audiences will take away from Labyrinth Live?
A: More than anything, that they have had a brilliant night out in the theatre – I hope they will have been moved, have laughed, have celebrated, have maybe cried, that audiences will have experienced all the emotions. I write to entertain, and I perform to entertain, so enjoyment is top of the list. Beyond that, I’d like them to have a strong sense of how women’s stories are part of history, too, and how that matters. I’d like them to be thinking about the persecution of the Cathars, and the tragic ways in which history repeats itself through the generations. I’d love them to be thinking about the differences between mystery and folklore, history and legend. I also want people to also come out buzzing with the joy of history and knowing that storytelling is the thing that brings us all together.
For those who know Carcassonne, I want them to feel they are there in southwest France, standing on the top of Montségur or wandering through the cobbled streets of medieval Carcassonne. It should be familiar for those who have visited and for those who’ve never been, I hope it will whet their appetite to go.
Q: Is storytelling part of our DNA?
A: Definitely. It’s how we make sense of our experiences now and in the past. From my most recent historical adventure, The Map of Bones, right back to Labyrinth, I’ve learned how most readers don’t think ‘I must read a book about the Huguenots’ or ‘I must learn about the Cathars’, but rather they fall in love with a character and so become invested in the story. Storytelling is one of the ways we deal with our very deepest emotions. When people sit in a theatre and the lights go down and the music starts, they will feel anticipation. They might even feel a twinge of apprehension. They will feel strong emotions. They will feel fury at some of the stories that I’m telling. That enables them to process and cope the very big emotions that every human being from the whole of history has felt, but in a safe way. And that’s what stories do. They help us to make sense of the world.
Q: Why is it so important that we learn about history?
A: History matters because knowing about the past shines a light on the present. For history to mean anything, it has to be the story of all of us. It cannot be partial, or written with an agenda, it has to shine a light on all people, all countries, all race, all eras, all religions in order to give a true picture. History is about telling the truth – especially about women’s experiences, which have so often been ignored or left out of the official history books – because that is the only way to achieve a more equal and fairer world. I am an idealist, as you can tell, but I believe fundamentally that storytelling and putting accurate history at the heart of things will get rid of so many of the misunderstandings. Human beings always find a way to muck things up. But if we know the history, at least we can be more sympathetic to those with whom we don’t agree, and maybe that leaves room for dialogue.
Q: I understand that your son has taken some lovely publicity photos for the tour.
A: For the first ten years of his career, he was an actor in musical theatre. He is now a novelist and script editor film writer, working on the other side of the footlights, and runs a playwriting mentoring scheme in the West End. As a sideline, he’s also set up his own theatre photography business, so he was obviously the only choice when we needed images for the tour. The sword that I am holding in the publicity photo is one that belonged to him when he was younger, so we didn’t even have to hire a prop!
Q: Your daughter is also involved in the arts, isn’t she?
A: Yes, she is an inspirational leader in the world of art and supporting visual artists to achieve their potential. We work together, too, so that that is just wonderful, and I learn so much from her.
Q: You and your husband have clearly fostered a really creative environment in which your children have flourished.
A: The experience of Labyrinth showed it might be possible to do the thing that you love as a living. So we encouraged both of our children to follow their dreams. . Being honest, there were a lot of lean years before Labyrinth, so that’s why this novel is so special to me. It’s a wonderful thing when your ship suddenly comes in.
Q: I hear you only have one pair of shoes.
A: Well, only one pair of ‘work’ shoes (I do have wellies and trainers, and sandals for the summer). But I do wear the same pair of work shoes every day, and with every outfit. There’s enough to think about in everyday life without thinking about shoes. They are black, triple stack brothel creepers made by a British company called Underground. When they wear out (normally after about five years), I buy another pair exactly Q: What would your epitaph be?
A: She loved and was loved. Family is the most important thing. I love my work, and work all the time, but what matters is family and friends. That is where my ambition, my sense of purpose, my joy comes from. I inherited that from my parents, I hope I passed it on to our children, and now we have a grandchild, too, so it’s wonderful seeing the next generation coming along.
Q: You’ve got amazing energy. Where does that come from?
A: This is going to sound very corny, but I enjoy life. I had amazing parents and a wonderful upbringing. My mother was incredibly energetic and fizzy, my father gentle and kind, and they were always busy. They both worked, but our house was always filled in the evenings with committee meetings and people bringing envelopes to be stuffed and put through doors. They had a strong sense of community and my sisters and I are very much the same. So, my mantra is don’t waste your time, use every day and make the most of it. You might feel a little weary, or feel that things aren’t going very well, but you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself down. Tomorrow is another day, as Gone with the Wind would have it.
PHOTO CREDIT: FELIX MOSSE
See Kate at the Queen’s Theatre on WEDNESDAY 19TH MARCH.
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