OXFORD’s Pegasus Theatre has said a colourful thank you to more than 400 donors who have helped raise £7.4m for its new theatre complex.

Theatre stage designer Nomi Everall has painted an eye-catching seven foot high mural to acknowledge the contribution that Oxfordshire residents and organisations have made towards giving the theatre a bright future.

In January, demolition work began to knock down the theatre’s post-war pre-fabricated premises and most of the bulldozing work is now complete.

Building work on the new theatre is under way and is set to finish on April, 12, 2010.

However a further six months will then be taken to kit out the main auditorium with a new café, purpose-built backstage, workshop areas and a front of house area also to be constructed.

The theatre in Magdalen Road is currently surrounded by fencing and proseven foot work boards shield the site.

Miss Everall worked solidly for took two and a half days to transform the drab frontage into an intriguing spectacle.

The director of Pegasus’s revamp, Simon Daykin, said: “This hoarding really brightens up the area.

“Nomi’s done a fantastic job of making what could seem just like a rather boring list of people an attractive focal point.

“If you’ve given no matter how much, your name will be here.

“It’s amazing how many people got behind us with support and it’s important for us to thank them each one of them.

“Local residents get a real lift from seeing something like this as they walk down the street, and people can now see around 400 names of local people who want to be involved in supporting Pegasus.”

Miss Everall, 27, a tutor of technical theatre at Pegasus said: “It brings a lot of sunshine to the community.

“A lot of people stopped me when I was working on it and said they were so pleased to see a splash of colour put on the walls.”

The theatre has now installed two webcams named ‘PegaCam 1’ and ‘PegaCam 2’ so people can keep up to date on the progress of the construction work and view it being built in real time.

It is hoped the footage can then be used to crease a video exhibition when the work is completed.

A pit for a new lift shaft has just been created on-site and in the next few weeks a large crane will be erected to install the steel structure and concrete slabs that will form the framework of the building.