Unspotted Snow by Peter Arnott

A new play commissioned by Mull Theatre based on the tale of the ill-fated Franklin expedition to discover the North-West Passage and it’s extraordinary 170-year legacy.

Unspotted Snow is a “ripping yarn” – a bold and adventurous tale of tragedy, mishap, folly, arrogance, madness and betrayal, Victorian heroism … and ruthless news management. 

In 1845, Sir John Franklin and 159 men sailed off in search of the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific by way of the North coast of Canada. They vanished…

For years his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, devoted herself to trying to ascertain his fate.  After nine years, news was at last brought to London by Orcadian explorer and physician John Rae, who worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company. He brought relics, proof of their sad fate and the grizzly demise of the expedition.

Unfortunately for Rae, he told the wrong story – the true story – but the wrong one. Lady Franklin poured scorn on him and his claims. Their fight went public, involving parliament, a play, countless newspaper and magazine articles and robust interventions from Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

Rae never got the credit he deserved for finding not only evidence of the fate of Franklin’s expedition but for doing what they could not do … finding the last link in the North-West Passage itself.

The tale of this ill-fated expedition has fascinated scientists, explorers and the general public for
over a century and a half.

Now, come along with Mull Theatre to explore and discover the hazy, crazy halftruths, rumours and scandals which besmirched the unspotted snow of the great white north!