Mull Little Theatre began as the Thursday Theatre, an entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...

 for the paying guests of the Druimard Guest House on the Isle of Mull

Isle of Mull

The Isle of Mull or simply Mull is the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute....

 in the Inner

Inner Hebrides

The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...

 Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 Hebrides

Hebrides

The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...

. Built from the shell of an old byre (cowshed) in 1963 by Barrie and Marianne Hesketh, it grew in reputation and officially became "Smallest Professional Theatre in the World" according to the Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...

.

Since 1995 the company has been run by a voluntary Board of Directors, and also since that time the Artistic Director has been Alasdair McCrone. The company dropped the 'little' from its name and became simply Mull Theatre.

The last performance in the original Little Theatre was given in 2006, and a new Production Centre, capable of housing performances as well as rehearsals and workshops, was opened in July 2008 at Druimfin, just outside Tobermory, the main village on Mull. Mull Theatre is funded by the Scottish Arts Council

Scottish Arts Council

The Scottish Arts Council is a Scottish public body that distributes funding from the Scottish Government, and is the leading national organisation for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland...

 in recognition of its importance in touring its productions throughout Scotland.

A Selection of Work Presented by the Theatre 1966 - 1984

Aleksei Arbuzov - Old World

J M Barrie - Seven Women; Rosalind; The Twelve Pound Look

Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

 - Harmfulness of Tobacco; The Bear; The Packmule; The Proposal; Tatiana Repin (world premier)

Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...

 - The Human Voice

La voix humaine

La voix humaine is a one-act opera for one character, with music by Francis Poulenc to a libretto by Jean Cocteau, based on his 1930 play. La voix humaine was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Salle Favart in Paris on 6 February 1959...

Iain Crichton Smith

Iain Crichton Smith

Iain Crichton Smith was a Scottish man of letters, writing in both English and Scottish Gaelic, and a prolific author in both languages...

 - Phones (the first play he wrote for theatre); A Writer’s Notebook; Waiting for the Train

Jan de Hartog

Jan de Hartog

Jan de Hartog was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker.- Early years :...

 - The Four Poster

Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Musset

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...

 - The Door Must Be Either Open or Shut (Il Faut Qu'une Porte Soit Ouverte Ou Fermée)

Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn

Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...

 - Chinamen

Bill Manhoff - The Owl and the Pussycat

Lorne Macintyre - Verse play

Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Molnár

LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...

 - The Cab; A Matter of Husbands; A Railway Adventure

David Pitman - Life and Death of Betty Burke

Jules Renard

Jules Renard

Pierre-Jules Renard or Jules Renard was a French author and member of the Académie Goncourt, most famous for the works Poil de carotte and Les Histoires Naturelles...

 - Clean Break; Daily Bread (translated by Rayner Heppenstall

Rayner Heppenstall

John Rayner Heppenstall was a British novelist, poet, diarist, and a BBC radio producer.-Early life:...

, first stage production)

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 - The Tempest

The Tempest

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...

; Macbeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 - Village Wooing; Saint Joan

Saint Joan (play)

Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...

August Strindberg

August Strindberg

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...

 - Miss Julie

Miss Julie

Miss Julie is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg dealing with class, love, lust, the battle of the sexes, and the interaction among them...

; The Bond; The Stronger

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 - The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...

Marianne Hesketh - Exile; Mixtymaxty; Loving life (programmes of verse and prose arranged by Marianne); The Gumboil (play)

Barrie Hesketh - Willy Nilly; Dear Mr Shaw (based on correspondence between Shaw and Margaret Wheeler)

Barrie & Marianne Hesketh - Ostrich

Footnotes