MULL Theatre’s new artistic director Rebecca Atkinson-Lord looks out of the window of her croft on Tobermory, wallowing in “the white sky, the sea like glass which looks like a beautiful silver pool.” It’s all so far away from Wolverhampton where she grew up, or indeed the tiny corner of the Greek island of Crete, where she lived for much of her younger life.

Yet, while Atkinson-Lord’s world is now one of thick thermals and maxi-length puffa jackets, the director maintains her Hellenese island experience has helped immensely with the Hebridean task ahead.

But how can an Aegean paradise life offer up an appreciation of what it means to run the joined up ‘multi-artform organisation’ which is An Tobar and Mull Theatre? “Temperature-wise, it [Crete and Mull] doesn’t compare but in terms of community it does,” says the director, smiling.

“I grew up in a fishing village of about 800 people in the summer, but there was a similar seasonal ebb and flow of people, and it was a world dependent upon fishing, farming and tourism. And like Mull, everyone knows everyone, including your second cousin twice removed.”

This intimacy can present a huge positive. “People will tell me what they want to see in a theatre show. I have to work to make this happen. And they are very aware, artistically. This is a community that can offer a criticism that’s well informed.”

But how did Atkinson-Lord come to spend half her younger life in a tiny village in Crete? It transpires pancakes were involved. “Growing up in Wolverhampton we didn’t have a huge amount of money. (The hyphenated surname was an Equity choice, rather than an indicator of family wealth.) My dad is a potter, but potters tend to earn about as much as freelance theatre people, so we couldn’t afford fancy foreign holidays.”

In 1985, however, travel agents Lunn Poly ran a life-changing competition. “If you took a pancake into their office on pancake day, you won a holiday in Crete for your whole family. Well, I’ve got four sisters, so we all got holidays and went to Crete each year, and during the trips one of my older sisters began going out with a Greek man.”

Atkinson-Lord’s parents also came to love the island. At first, they rented a small home and later decided to build their own home. “In 2000, they bought a ruin at the top of a hill, which involved my now 70-year-old mum dragging rocks and cement up to it, with the idea of creating their dream home.” She adds; “From going over regularly, I found myself living there in my 20s.”

It’s easy to appreciate why the tiny Greek village helped her understand the dynamic of a small community. But how did Atkinson-Lord come to engage with the world of theatre, of directing actors, producing new plays and performance pieces. Indeed, organising tours?

Surely the idea of becoming a theatre director wasn’t formed in a remote island village? “No, you’re right,” she smiles. “At school, from the age of 13, I wanted to become an actor. But I was too scared to tell anyone until aged 18 when I applied to drama college.”

The teenager didn’t make it, however. An accident saw her unable to walk properly and she spent a year recuperating. “But I didn’t want my brain to die, so I took a place at Bristol University, [studying Ancient History] knowing full well I would drop out and go to drama school.”

The best laid plans. . . During the early months of university, Atkinson-Lord directed a show. “I thought ‘Oh, this is kinda good.’” The experience was so uplifting she applied to RADA and took a Masters in Theatre Direction, going on to work with the likes of Shakespeare’s Globe, Scottish Opera, and the Royal Opera House.

But the young director wasn’t prepared to wait around for work to come her way. Atkinson-Lord set up her own theatre company in an old archway in Brixton. In 2008 she founded Arch 468, a theatre production and development hub ‘dedicated to transforming the theatre landscape.’

A grand thought indeed? “Yes. I didn’t even have a business plan,” she says, grinning. “I just saw a space for rent and did it.” She laughs out loud. “When you can deal with toilets being blocked and sewage all over the road you can deal with most things.”

Productions such as The Sluts of Sutton Drive certainly captured local attention. “It was an upfront show that was a little hard to tell your mum about.”

Four years, later Atkinson-Lord was nominated for the Off-West End Award for Best Director for her production of Cuddles, by Joseph Wilde. The production toured the UK and then in 2015 it transferred to New York, where it was hailed by the New York Times as one of the best theatre shows of the year.

Atkinson-Lord’s reputation was now that of an international-class director, even more enhanced when a year later Nicole Kidman optioned the film rights to Cuddles, which is still being developed.

The director offers a very pleased smile. “From being in a tiny, converted railway arch in Brixton one minute to Nicole Kidman buying our play is really bonkers. But it was brilliant that people loved that show and it gave me a real sense of finding my tribe, people who loved the [‘bold and daring’] style.”

There is little doubt Atkinson-Lord will bring a drive and energy to her new working life in the Hebrides, with the intent that her theatre becomes “a cultural beacon for the whole of Scotland, the UK, and the wider world.”

What she also hopes to do is encourage people into the arts, to show them that possibility exists. “If you grow up in a backwater, or even a normal town, and you’re not connected there’s no way of knowing what’s available to you. And there’s also this notion of not getting ahead of yourself you have to deal with."

Atkinson-Lord believes she has found a new tribe in Scotland. However, the artistic director is entirely aware that Mull Theatre has had to contend with internal strife in recent years and had “a bit of a tricksy, crunchy past”.

She explains: “There had been two small organisations here, An Tobor and Mull Theatre and they merged, with the support of Creative Scotland. And, as I understand it, people had to learn to operate in a larger scale, which caused a lot of tension.”

There was drama. There was snot and tears. And strife and sackings. But Atkinson-Lord believes the tempest has passed. White sky days lie ahead. “I love this theatre. I love the staff. And there is such a massive artistic community in Mull. People are really engaged.”

Her voice reveals a huge optimism, a powerful sense of excitement and derring-do, perhaps underscored by the title of the new production she’s now rehearsing, writer Rachel Mars’ Our Carnal Hearts, which “helps us understand the concept of jealousy.”

But the theatre challenge aside, how easy was it move 400-odd miles and a ferry crossing to the new life? What, for example, was her husband Andy’s reaction when she told him she’d applied for the job?

“Actually, I didn’t tell him about it until the first interview,” she says, grinning. “At least, not until they invited us up to meet the team and see the island. At this point I said to him if he didn’t like it, we didn’t have to come here. But he loved it.”

Atkinson-Lord’s new job, she says, is “perfect” for her, allowing her to stage, for example, the recent touring production of searing comedy Every Brilliant Thing. “It’s right at the scale that I want to be working.”

But is there a minus to be found in this challenging, exciting new world? “Well, at this moment I can feel my toes turn to blocks of ice,” she admits, laughing. “A trip to Crete in the spring will be quite nice.”