Artistic Director of An Tobar and Mull Theatre, Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, on island life, how the theatre has changed the lives of many locals and her latest production – a powerful one-woman stage adaptation of Sarah Moss’ acclaimed novel Night Waking.
I grew up part of the time in Wolverhampton in the Black Country and the other part in a small fishing village on the Greek island of Crete. It’s an odd combination that came about because my dad was a potter who ended up as a sort of consultant for archaeologists interested in ancient ceramics and technology. Some of my earliest memories are of wandering round baking hot ancient ruins with my dad, licking pottery fragments (Because the feel on your tongue tells you the temperature they were fired at. Not because I was starving or anything). Now I live just outside Tobermory on the Isle of Mull – which is surprisingly similar to a small Cretan fishing village. Albeit with a lot more rain. My parents are both utterly brilliant. I’d be honoured to grow up to be like them.
I’m quite academic and got straight A’s all the way through school – I still get really excited by obscure bits of knowledge and I’m really good at remembering stuff once I’m interested in it. But I also had a very mischievous streak and a healthy suspicion of authority that sometimes got me into trouble.
There are so many places in Scotland I love. The Summerhall courtyard on a buzzing summer evening mid-fringe, a particular hidden beach on the shore of Loch Awe, but my favourite is the look out spot at the top of the waterfall next to Mull Theatre. I walk there every day and it never fails to take my breath away.
I think stories were my first love. Books, history, tall tales, theatre. But I definitely loved watching and performing for as long as I can remember. I remember going to see a production of The Hobbit when I was about five and crying so loudly when Thorin Oakenshield died that the usher had to take me outside to calm down. To this day I could still draw that scene from memory – it was a really powerful experience.
I wish I had written The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. It is an utterly perfect play about the way the stories we tell shape our world into what it is. It’s visceral and upsetting and hilarious and shocking and I would love to direct it one day.
My biggest achievement professionally? Probably a cumulation of all the artists careers I have helped support, nurture and launch over the years – artist development and support is one of my favourite bits of my job and I love it when I get to see someone becoming a big success and I know I helped them get that first foot in the door.
An Tobar and Mull Theatre. Credit: Calum Hall.
Working on Mull and attracting an audience there is mad and brilliant and frustrating and joyful all at once. So many of the community know so much about each other that it’s a bit like running a theatre in the middle of a loud dysfunctional family. The best bit is that I know that it really truly matters that An Tobar and Mull Theatre exists. The work we do unequivocally changes lives and improves life for so many people on the island. I get to see the impact every day. The worst bit is that I sometimes get treated as an outsider who’ll never belong, no matter how much I contribute to island life– but that’s just the nature of close knit communities. Erica Whyman (who was Artistic Director at the RSC) once told me that sometimes the key to success is ‘just to refuse to go away’. I think about that almost every day.
I’m not naïve enough to pretend theatre isn’t an aging art form, and I think local theatre had its moment probably some time in 500 BC. But in spite of that, it’s still so important that we all get opportunities to come together in person and share stories and experiences that help us develop our empathy muscles. It’s one of the only ways the modern world gives us to grow our understanding and love and compassion for other humans.
Audiences will get an utterly brilliant performance by Nicola Jo Cully in Night Waking. A creepy whodunnit. A historical detective story. A black comedy about regretting having kids. An investigation into island life. A really fun and thought provoking night out probably unlike any play they’ve seen before.
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