“I think it’s absurd, I think it’s absolutely bonkers actually,” Selina Mosinski tells me of her experiences as a young, working class woman in the adult industry in the late 90s and early 00s. We’re chatting ahead of the Fringe, where she will be staging Puss In Boots – A Working Class Fairytale: a semi-autobiographical exploration of the lengths a person will go to for fame and fortune.
In the show, Mosinski draws on her time working in a Derby strip club at the turn of the millennium, aged 18, and revives her stripper persona Randy Cain. For the comedian, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the gender politics of the time and, in particular, how it intersected with a burgeoning soft porn and strip club culture, with women using their bodies to make their own money and have fun whilst doing it. Think: Gail Porter, naked and beamed onto The House of Commons; dads reading Page Three at the breakfast table; and glamour models like Jordan becoming household names.
As Mosinski sees it, the moment was defined by the social figure of the ‘ladette’: a woman who embraced stereotypically masculine behaviours to operate within a popular culture still defined by men. While women believed that they had finally been liberated from the confines of conservative ideas of femininity, she says the reality is more complex. “We felt like we were being given the keys [to society] and we were going, ‘Wow, we can do anything, we’re going to be really respected, and we can do what we want,’” she says. “Actually, it was very performative, gender performative. We were performing like ladettes.”
While Puss In Boots reflects on one of the earlier periods of Mosinski’s life, it offers an opportunity for the creative to reinvent herself. For the past fourteen years, she’s been synonymous with her role as Charity Shop Sue (created by Matthew and Timothy Chesney). Sue, a domineering former celebrity stylist with increasingly farcical ideas to rescue the ailing charity shop she manages, has over time become a viral sensation online with her iconic catchphrases and absurd comedy.
It’s clear the performer still loves playing Sue, but she’s excited to branch out into something new. “I think Sue became a security blanket, you know? I hope I do Sue for another 14 years, but I felt like I’d started to get too safe,” she explains. “I think when you start to feel like that creatively, you need to do something that makes you feel nervous and anxious. Then you get to the point when you’re in your mid 40s and finally you’re getting the confidence and the financial backing to take something to [the Edinburgh Fringe].”
Despite the institutional barriers she has faced along the way, Mosinski has been able to develop a distinctive voice and attract a fanbase who are compelled by her camp character comedy: something she marvels at when looking back at her journey over the years. “I think I am living in a working class fairy tale, because I never would have thought that I’d be getting paid to be creative,” she says. “Has it taken me a lot longer? Yeah, but I’ve always had this motivation, I think [the adversity] just pushed me to keep going.”
As the conversation comes to a close, Mosinski offers some advice to her younger self, reflecting on just how far she has come. “Don’t beat yourself up about all those years of partying because they were worth it. You’ve had a great life, and you’re just about to storm the bloody Edinburgh Festival [Fringe]!”
Selina Mosinski: Puss in Boots – A Working Class Fairy Tale, Pleasance Dome, 5-30 Aug (not 19), 9.30pm