Following another successful seaon (Katie Morag is currently selling out venues all over Scotland), Mull Theatre has two more reasons to celebrate. 

A £250,000 Lottery Grant has been approved for Mull Theatre’s new building. The Mull Little Theatre will close at the end of 2006 when the lease runs out, but Mull Theatre has found a new home - on a woodland site just two miles outside Tobermory, which has been leased on generous terms from the Forestry Commission.

Mull Theatre is funded by the Scottish Arts Council as a touring company, taking theatre to remote rural communities in the Highlands and Islands. The company also takes its productions to major city venues in central Scotland.

To support this work we need a new building which will be more than just a theatre, it will be a Production Centre which will comprise rehearsal facilities, scenery workshop and storage areas, and office accommodation for the administration, marketing, fundraising and education activities of the company. Of necessity, the Production Centre will be larger than the much-loved Mull Little Theatre, but we hope that its intimate character, atmosphere and ethos will live on in the new building.

The project will be completed in phases over several years. Planning permission for the building was granted recently, and this week a £250,000 Lottery Grant has been approved. If all goes to plan, the new building will open in 2007.

Cyprus transfers to London to open a new theatre on Whitehall. Trafalgar Studios is one of the newest and most exciting theatres in London. Part of the Ambassadors Group, it was formerly the Whitehall Theatre, but has been converted into 2 studio theatres. Mull Theatre’s acclaimed production of Cyprus opens the 100-seater Studio 2 on November 17, and will run for four weeks. Studio 2 was designed to feature innovative work from national and international companies, and Mull Theatre is proud to be the first company to put on a production there.

Cyprus, specially commissioned by Mull Theatre, is by Peter Arnott (The Breathing House, Losing Alec) and bristles with wit, satire and contemporary political relevance.

Says Peter Arnott: "I suppose that a Dervaig to Whitehall transfer does count as a bit of a coup, especially given the military nature of the piece...and the karmic serendipity or whatever it might be is only enhanced by the fact that these two places are exactly where the action and subject matter of the play are set...that is a chance meeting in Whitehall of two cold warriors leading them up to Mull. I guess the neatness of that must have appealed to the producers. For me, now, having had a look at the space and its location, I can pinpoint the exact point on the pavement where Griffen and Traquair ‘happen’ to bump into each other. It's almost like it was planned.

“The only other observation I'd make is that having finally got around to directing a play of my own, it goes to London...and will be touring Scotland next year...perhaps someone is trying to tell me something. If it's MI6, however, I don't want to know."