As the boy Will said, some folks are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

There is, however, a fourth category; people whose greatness is never acknowledged.

One such great Scot is Orcadian Dr John Rae – who, when working for the Hudson Bay Company in Canada, mapped out hundreds of miles of unexplored territory in the north of that country and was the man who discovered the north west passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

His exploits, and the reason his reputation was trashed and buried, is the subject of a brand new play, by the ever talented Peter Arnott, which the Mull Theatre Company is bringing to Cove Burgh Hall for the final date of their pan-Scotland tour this coming Saturday.

READ MORE: Mull Theatre tour ends in Cove on Saturday.

As Peter explained to me this week, Rae had found out during his own expeditions, and from talking to the Inuits, how Captain Sir John Rankin’s earlier exploration in 1845 had come to grief with all hands lost.

More, he discovered from the locals that there was evidence they had resorted to cannibalism through desperation.

He reported all this back to the Admiralty in London, who leaked the information into the public domain (some things never change!).

Says Peter: “I think they did it to silence Franklin’s widow, Lady Jane, who’d been handbagging them for information at regular intervals. She was a formidable woman!”

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Just how formidable we find out in the second half of his play which moves from Franklin’s expeditionary team on site, to Lady Franklin’s drawing room in London.

That was where Rae found out that hell hath no fury like a British Imperialist widow and her supporters, which, improbably, included Charles Dickens.

She was not about to have her husband’s reputation sullied. She didn’t much care about Rae’s.

Unspotted Snow is that rare theatrical offering which merges drama, music and humour to great effect and has had uniformly positive reviews everywhere it’s played.

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But this Saturday is a very particular performance, which is why Peter Arnott himself will be on hand to watch a cast which includes Alasdair McCrone, the inspirational director and actor who did so much to make Mull Theatre the force it became.

This is Alasdair’s farewell to this production and indeed to the company which has consumed so much of his life, and given so much pleasure to audiences throughout the country.

I daresay both he, and a larger than usual cast, including musicians, would force down a goodbye drink were you to consider offering one!

Should be quite a special evening.

Unspotted Snow is at Cove Burgh Hall this Saturday, May 11. Doors open at 7.30pm and the performance starts at 8pm – and there’s a cash bar too.