THROUGHOUT the pandemic, theatre artists have been locked out of their plague-shuttered playhouses. Many have become engaged in alternative, online activities in order both to provide much-needed employment for themselves and others, and to maintain the essential connection with their theatre-starved audiences.

One of the most imaginative and rewarding of these online projects is Braw Tales, the latest online offering from Mull Theatre. Unable either to welcome visitors to its splendid, little playhouse at Tobermory or to take its theatrical wares on tour, the Hebridean company has chosen, instead, to beam (or, more accurately, stream) five new, short, animated films into our homes.

One film was released on each day of the week just past (from Monday through to Friday), and all of the mini-movies are available now through Mull Theatre’s Vimeo page.

First up was Stella, a semi-autobiographical piece written by Morna Young and animated by Kate Charter.

The piece is a humorous account of an encounter between the titular, bright, Scottish schoolgirl (and would-be astronaut) and a rigidly unimaginative careers advisor. It is also, in its alternate moments, a contemplation of the universe.

Young’s text is beautifully written, humorous, touching and empowering – especially for girls held back by outdated notions of gendered employment.

One can see the artistic purpose in the juxtaposing of the spoken, Earth-bound scenes with the silent, subtly animated views of space, complete with written text; but one still longs for actor MJ Deans (who plays Stella) to vocalise the explanations of the stars.

Uma Nada-Rajah’s A Pickpocket’s Tale is gloriously quirky, both in terms of its story and its fabulously handmade animation. It’s a highly original take on the kind of long-running conspiracy theories – promulgated by people like David Icke – that have reached their dubious pinnacle during the pandemic.

Sarah Miele plays the pint-sized thief of the title with the necessary childishness. However, parents and guardians beware, neither the storyline nor the unexpectedly (and humorously) sweary text are designed for young children.

The Shark Was Aware Of Me by Alan Bissett is, for my money, the pick of the bunch. Elderly Jemima – played wonderfully by the always superb Alison Peebles – lives an isolated life in a Scottish city high-rise flat.

Both she and her urban environs are visualised and animated with the distinctive brilliance of master puppet-maker Gavin Glover.

The miniaturised city streets, with their tiny people and cardboard buildings, have a paradoxically strange familiarity that is the perfect accompaniment to Bissett’s engagingly odd account of Jemima’s telepathic connection with a shark.

Fine actor Daniela Nardini takes us back approximately 2240 years in Ellie Stewart’s The Night You Were Born.

Nardini plays a woman from the camp of the great general Hannibal in a piece that wonders what might have happened to a baby elephant born on the eve of Carthage’s famous march on Rome.

Stewart’s idea is delightfully inventive and expressed beautifully by both writer and actor. The sibling team of John Kielty and James Kielty visualise the tale charmingly in what one might call a combination of illustration and minimal animation.

When I read the synopsis for Quelle Trapeze by Laurie Motherwell, I assumed that Olly, the protagonist, who escapes his birthday party in pursuit of greater excitement at the circus, was a child. In fact, it transpires, he is a (too) well-lubricated grown man – voiced excellently by Andrew Rothney.

Nisan Yetkin creates a splendidly dreamy animation for an eventful, and ultimately hilarious, night on the tiles that is exchanged for a night in the big top.

Braw Tales can be accessed at: vimeo.com/antobarandmulltheatre