The View from Mull

EILEEN BELL investigates Mull Theatre Company’s search for a new home, and looks ahead to their 2005 season
 

THEATRE IN the Highlands and Islands – historically speaking – hasn’t exactly taken centre stage.  Don’t get me wrong; when it comes to entertainment, we’ve got it.  Ceilidhs, shindigs and hootenannies, weddings, funerals, piping recitals, and, yes, the eagerly anticipated annual Mod all provide plenty of valid excuses to have a good time.

We’re a hotbed of cultural activity, smouldering over the misty hills.  But when it comes to having a good drama or comedy acted out for a discriminating audience – well, let’s be candid.  One would look first to the big smoke and its hordes, the pulsating network of streets and cars and bustling activity and class division and its all-important insight into ‘Culture’.

But the times they are a-changing.  Artistically, Scotland is thriving, with funding available for just about anyone with talent.  Amongst the true success stories of our funded enterprises sits Mull Theatre, a professional theatre company intent on bringing productions to our remotest corners.

While on a media tour of Argyll organised by HI~Arts and the Channel 4 Ideas Factory in November, I had the opportunity to see Mull Theatre in their final performance of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Jekyll & Hyde’, which had toured Scotland before coming back home to round things off in Tobermory. 

It was quite an enlightening experience, all in all.  The set was ingeniously constructed, given the size restriction of most of the venues it was to fit into.  The acting and the direction were fantastic, and the innovative reworking of the script was delightful; two actors were used to play the protagonist’s two sides, and this made the story much easier to follow and more fun to watch.

To see a play performed with talent and an experienced flair is a rare treat.  To see such a thing in Tobermory was… surprising.  It ignited that spark of island patriotism which flickers, steadfastly on the edge of going out, in my fluttering Uisteach’s heart. 

So impressed was I that I decided to have a word with Mull Theatre’s Artistic Director, Alasdair McCrone.  He enlightened me on what’s happening with the players in the coming year, and spoke freely about his views on Scotland’s artistic future.  Theatre is a busy thing across Scotland at the moment, and there’s a lot to consider.

“There seems to be a grand tradition in these parts to spend absolutely nothing on something until every last bit of use has been bled out of it”

For starters, the Eden Court in Inverness is undergoing a major transformation to the tune of £13 million, an ambitious project set to begin in June 2005.  (Yes, I know, this has nothing to do with Mull, apart from a tenuous association.  Bear with me.)

Eden Court is (arguably, I suppose) the cornerstone theatre of the Highlands and Islands.  The popular view of the figure for costs seems to be that they’re high – but painfully necessary.  The 1970’s portion of the building is falling apart.  It’s quite simply inadequate, and leaving it be just isn’t an option when the influence here places so much importance on creativity.

There seems to be a grand tradition in these parts to spend absolutely nothing on something until every last bit of use has been bled out of it – we are perfect examples of the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ culture.  But it’s broke.  So we’re fixing it.  And by God, we plan to do a darn good job.

In light of the Eden Court plans (see? – told you I’d get to the point), it seems pertinent to bring up the home of Mull Theatre, the ‘Little Theatre’ which sits in Dervaig outside Tobermory.  Yes, it’s a lovely name, isn’t it?  It brings to mind a quaint little place with a familial atmosphere, an island oasis of cosiness. 

Well, think again.  A leaking roof, a far from comfortable backstage area, and a seating capacity of only 43 are just a few of its myriad problems.  It’s not only inadequate, it’s completely non- cost effective!  As a result, the Little Theatre is rarely used anymore, McCrone preferring the Aros Hall in Tobermory proper of late. 
 
In light of the funding available, it seems to make sense that Mull Theatre have been looking for funding and for alternative premises for years.  As McCrone puts it, ‘It would seem appropriate that the Highlands and Islands premier touring theatre company has its premier venue.’  Hard to argue with. 

Unfortunately, the funding bodies didn’t see it that way.  Their willingness to bring productions to our far-flung corners marked Mull Theatre out as a touring company, and thus a venue was deemed unnecessary.

“It’s the juxtaposition of cosmopolitan artistic culture with serene ‘ruralness’ that Mull Theatre do so well.”

With the lease on the existing “Mull Little Theatre” expiring on 31st December 2006, they are in the process of  securing new facilities, as well as a half-century lease on a plot of land outside Tobermory.  Plans are currently in development for a ‘Mull HQ’.  The main aim is to construct somewhere ‘a little less little’, as Alasdair puts it: a decent-sized production theatre which will enable them to stage decent-sized productions, and to do so on a more consistent basis. 

McCrone hopes this will work the other way as well, attracting productions to Mull from a variety of companies across the lands, and perhaps even offer some opportunity for collaboration between companies.  All this development is sure to attract some national attention, creating more work for the theatre company whilst they’re creating an infrastructure to support it.

It’s the juxtaposition of cosmopolitan artistic culture with serene ‘ruralness’ that Mull Theatre do so well.  That’s what will spur our artistic community on, and remind us why all this funding is essential.  It’s a kick-start, enabling the wide world of literary and theatrical culture to bring enlightenment (21st century style) to Scotland’s most barren parts.

And once our home-grown talent gets a chance to flourish, we can carry some weight on the artistic scene of Britain, and the world beyond her doors.  But even more importantly than that, we can have a cracking time doing it.

If that sounds good to you, I’d highly recommend catching Mull Theatre when they bring their shows your way. The first item on the agenda is a revival of Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Lonesome West’, the black comedy about two bickering Irish brothers which was enormously well received when it played last July.  The key roles are reprised by Mull’s shining stars Stephen Clyde and Alan Steele, with Beth Marshall providing the female object of attention, and Kevin Lennon as the Irish Catholic guilt in the guise of Father Welsh.

Last year’s production gained enough national attention for Scotland’s larger theatres to become interested, and as a result it will be showing in Glasgow’s Tron Theatre and the Dundee Rep this time around.  Each theatre gets the show for a week in June, but the play is quite appropriately set to begin again in Mull – with one small change: the venue is not the Masonic Hall as it was last year, but the Aros Hall.

In keeping with the dark theme but moving from ‘tried and tested’ to ‘brand spanking new’, the summer production will be a commission from playwright Peter Arnott, ‘Cyprus’.  A spy thriller with a political twist, this promises to be story of intrigue set in the hidden highlands.  It’s about an ex-secret service agent, attempting to escape his secrets and inevitably finding they’ve followed him north.

The autumn brings something for the family, with a stage adaptation of the popular children’s books ‘Katie Morag’.  The brainchild of Coll’s Mairi Hedderwick, the books have an impressive following amongst the little people; so acting out the stories and adding a bit of music certainly seems like a winner, as ideas go. 

On a side-note, the grown-ups in the audience might be pleased to read that the production is an alternative to (for ‘alternative’ read ‘backlash’) the by-now quite trite Balamory Culture which has (according to everybody who’s never been there) ‘Put Mull on the Map’.  ‘Katie Morag’ promises to show us the Hebrides from a kid’s point of view, with not a PC Plum in sight.

‘The Lonesome West’ is at Aros Hall, Tobermory on 26 May-13 June; Tron Theatre, Glasgow ,14-22 June; Dundee Rep , Dundee, 23–29 June.

‘Cyprus’ opens at Mull Little Theatre, Tobermory on 21 July and runs until 19 August.

‘Katie Morag’ opens at Aros Hall, Tobermory on 25 August, and will tour the Highlands and Islands, stopping at Glasgow’s Citizen’s Theatre in September.

© Eileen Bell, 2005

Links

• Mull Theatre website