To call this woman outstanding is not so much a compliment as a literal fact. Clare Molyneux stands out from the crowd in almost every way bar her physical self: small, dark, pretty, with a big smile and sculpted eyebrows, she could disappear into a crowded Liverpool street in a heartbeat.
But it doesn’t take more than a sentence to realise that this is a formidable individual who you’d be foolish to ignore.
Her theatre in education company, Open the Door, was named Liverpool’s best new business in 2006; Molyneux was awarded the MBE for services to education; to her personal credit is a string of properties in the UK and abroad, which, she says, makes her more money than the business does at the moment. In 2016 – when she’s 36 – she’ll have paid off all her mortgages and could retire.
Very young? Well, yes, but she started early. ‘I wrote my first play before I was three,’ she says, sounding faintly Mozartian. ‘It was gibberish, but I even wrote the credits,’ she giggles. When she was 13 she got a play on at the Everyman in Liverpool. ‘But I was 25 before I made any real money,’ she says.
She doesn’t talk much about money, she isn’t flashy. ‘Money is a by-product, a tool. Showing wealth is vulgar – wearing it all...’ she is no WAG. ‘I bought a 1979 Aston Martin,’ she smiles. ‘Gorgeous.’ So she isn’t miserly. ‘No. I buy nice things because I want them, not because I think they’ll impress people. And the only thing better than perfect is free. I love a bargain.’
So where does this drive come from? Hers is not a common career path. ‘It’s massively important to know that I was a fat, spotty kid from Anfield: eight stone when I was eight, ten stone when I was 10; glasses, acne from the age of seven, couldn’t do sport, and badly dyslexic. I was an only child, didn’t get on with kids – couldn’t be bothered with them, really. ‘No-one thought I’d amount to anything – I had to prove them wrong,’ she says. ‘When I got to senior school and had my first drama lesson... it was tremendous, being someone else.’ Drama, writing and performance became her saving grace and her lifelong passion – and then a business.
‘When I turned 21, I was made redundant, and six weeks later my dad died. At home I took on the role of the breadwinner. I swore I’d never again give anyone the power to sack me.’
Not wanting to be two women living in Anfield, ‘which had turned into Mad Max country by then,’ Molyneux mother and daughter sold their house for a pittance and bought a doer-upper in West Derby.
‘I took the wallpaper off, and the walls fell down. It was a bigger job than I’d thought.’ The builder failed to come up to scratch, so Molyneux binned him and did the work herself. ‘Went to B&Q for plaster, downloaded instructions from the net, and got on with it.’ They sold that house for three times the price they’d paid for it, and Molyneux was on the property ladder in fine style. ‘It’s still a hobby, but you can’t be enterprising in just one part of your life,’ she says.
‘People can’t believe I do the building work’ she says. ‘They don’t like it, either – they make out I’m weird.’ Not that she cares a hoot about being thought weird – she’s more afraid of being dull. ‘Fear of failure, fear of the mundane, forces me on.’
Then the business happened. Molyneux had been asked to run a drama workshop for 250 kids in their first term at secondary school, and wrote a play for them in a weekend, thinking some of the school’s drama pupils would perform it. The school, however, assumed Molyneux would also supply the acting company and asked what they would turn up on the day. Barely missing a beat, she said ‘About half past nine?’ then rushed off, found actors and started rehearsals. ‘Luckily I still had several thespian friends after training as an actor, and talked them into it. We had a great time rehearsing in my living room.’
The performance was such a success that Molyneux realised she had stumbled on to a business with prospects. She didn’t need to be told twice.
‘I’ve got no fear of taking chances – I love it. I’m addicted to fairgrounds – rollercoasters, anything where you’re dropped from a great height. What a rush!’ So Molyneux is an adrenalin junkie – but is she competitive as well?
‘I want to win, but to beat myself, not other people. Not only do I want to win, but I want to do a wheelie over the finishing line,’ she laughs. ‘I read an article about megalomaniacs recently. I ticked six out of the eight boxes.’
So risk is not a problem: in fact it’s a big fat challenge. ‘I love a close call. What’s the worst that could happen? Nobody’s going to die. So let’s have a go.’
But Molyneux isn’t daft. Adrenalin is all very well, but business decisions have an effect on everyone in the company, and it’s one thing risking her own money, but to risk others’ livelihoods is something else. Molyneux has her mother as a lodestone. ‘Your capers...’ she’ll tease her daughter. ‘I can hear your brain tick,’ when there’s a new idea simmering away.’ But she’s also a major asset to the business. ‘She does figures like Rain Man – she’s done the sums before I’ve got my pen out,’ says her daughter. And Molyneux has staying power, despite her aversion to wasting time. ‘I don’t prevaricate, and I can’t see the point in putting things off. But I am willing to have a horrible miserable time for six months if I know there are good times to be had at the other end of it.’
Achieving gives her a buzz, but the feeling doesn’t last long. ‘Getting a house finished, the first show of a new play, gives me a great feeling of accomplishment, but the next day I need to get going again. We’ve just got a huge new contract for a client in Liverpool, the Midlands and Cumbria, but almost as soon as I’d put the phone down on the news, I was thinking “How come not London too?” Sometimes when I’m up at 4am to meet a deadline, and I haven’t seen my mum for 16 hours, I wish I could be happy with my lot instead of always needing more,’ she says. But you get the feeling that being contented is not what she’s about. ‘Friends tell me I work too hard, tell me to get a life. But this is my life,’ she insists. She says with conviction that she will never marry, that she sees no reward in having a man in her life. She’s devoted to her mum, and needs no third party. She allows that there’s no knowing what the future might hold, but cannot imagine wanting children. The business and her new ideas are her babies – all her creative energies go into the work.
A brilliant starter, Molyneux is – unusually – a finisher, too. And she has learned to delegate – she says that’s hard, learning to let go. ‘I was working so hard in the business that I had no time to build it,’ she says. ‘But I’m good at surrounding myself with people who share my vision; I’m fiercely loyal to my staff, and I’m obsessive about giving people credit for what they contribute. But it’s me that signs the cheques, so in the end, if someone can’t see where I’m going, I will say goodbye.’
She doesn’t think everyone can be an entrepreneur. ‘You can learn enterprise skills, certainly. But a true entrepreneur is like a singer or a sportsman – you need talent as well as technique. And you need the heart. Are you willing to work, to take the risk, to wait for the rewards?’
When The Plan matures in nine years, and Molyneux can afford to quit, she can’t see herself retiring, but if she has another plan, she’s not saying. She hates sitting around on holidays; the countryside is anathema. ‘All that quiet: I get like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Five or six hours, that’s enough. I need the city.’
She’s an avid reader, but the only time she gets is in the loo. ‘And I sometimes get in a few paragraphs at traffic lights,’ she says.
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