Alan Cumming pledges to prioritise home-grown talent in job at theatre he claims was 'bubble of Englishness'

Alan Cumming was appointed artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre in September. Picture: Frederic Aranda | Frederic Aranda

Alan Cumming has pledged to provide Scottish artists and performers with a bigger platform at the theatre which he will be leading into a new era - as he claimed it had previously favoured English actors.

The Hollywood and Broadway star suggested generations of home-grown talent had been shunned by Pitlochry Festival Theatre, which has appointed him as artistic director.

Alan Cumming taking a selfie with Kirsty Wark as she presented her last edition of the BBC’s Newsnight programme.

Cumming, who was born in Perthshire, has told how he was advised "not to bother" auditioning for shows at the historic venue when he graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy for Music and Drama in Glasgow in the mid-1980s.

Cumming, who recalled how the theatre was seen as a "bubble of Englishness,” said although its approach had changed over the years, he wanted to "counter" what he felt it had stood for in the past when he officially takes up his post early next year.

Alan Cumming hosts The Traitors US. Picture: Euan Cherry

The stage and screen star also spoke of his dismay at the demise of Scottish theatres as social hubs since he first started performing.

Cumming pledged to use new events and activities to help establish Pitlochry Festival Theatre at the heart of public life in the town and turn it into “the most exciting place to visit”.

Alan Cumming presents The Traitors US. Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert/Peacock/Euan Cherry | BBC/Studio Lambert/Peacock/Euan Cherry

Cumming, who has been based in New York since the 1990s, was speaking at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh at an in-conversation fundraising event with broadcaster Kirsty Wark. Other special guests appearing at the Lyceum in the coming weeks including author Alexander McCall Smith on 19 December, former Scottish Makar Jackie Kay on 27 January and broadcaster James Naughtie on 10 February.

Cumming said there had been a "confluence" of factors involved in interest in the Pitlochry job, including a desire to spend more time in Scotland with his husband, Grant, buying a home in the Highlands and working on shows like The Traitors, in Easter Ross.

Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson are reuniting to launch a stage musical version of their BBC airline sitcom The High Life. | Contributed

Cumming, who spoke of his dismay at the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House, said the fact America was now "in Armageddon" had confirmed that he and his husband had made the right decision.

The actor, who was brought up in Aberfeldy, around 15 miles from Pitlochry, revealed that the "seed" of working at the theatre had been planted by his predecessor as artistic director, Elizabeth Newman, months before she announced her departure after six years.

Alan Cumming on stage at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2021. Picture: Jessica Shurte

She gave Cumming a guided tour of the venue when he visited to film scenes for his Channel 4 travel show Scotland's Poshest Train, which sees the actor travel around the country on the luxury Royal Scotsman train.

The first major productions programme by Cumming, whose appointment was announced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre in September, are not expected to be staged until early in 2026.

However its new artistic director said he had "loads of ideas" which would be rolled out over the next year to try to transform perceptions of the venue.

He said: "One of the things that's really p***** me off about Scottish theatre over the years is that when I was a baby actor, the Tron Theatre bar was the most exciting place to be and not just for actors.

"It was so exciting, it was such fun and you met great people. Great intellectual and artistic conversation thrived there. That was true of other theatre bars, like the Traverse in Edinburgh. I feel that that has all gone now.

"I feel like we've lost the sense of the theatre as a centre of community, as a church. I want Pitlochry Festival Theatre to be the most exciting place to come to in the town, even if you never see a play. You will be in a theatre building meeting and engaging with other people.

"My first season doesn't kick in until 2026, but I've got all these ideas that I want to try out over the next year that will hopefully really engage the community, and make the theatre a really vibrant and exciting place to come to."

Cumming, who first found fame at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Victor and Barry, the cabaret double act he formed with fellow drama student Forbes Masson, said there were "many reasons" behind his interest in the Pitlochry job.

He said: "When I graduated from drama school, everybody said: "Don't bother auditioning for Pitlochry. They only ever hire English actors. They will never employ you.'

"To me, it was a bubble of Englishness which was impenetrable. That has obviously changed over the years.

"When I went there to film recently, I thought it had an incredible campus and facilities.

"Elizabeth sort of planted the seed. For about nine months I thought: 'Ooh, that would be good, wouldn't it? I could do this and I could do that.' Then she announced that she had resigned.

"The new outlook in Pitlochry, which Elizabeth has sort of spearheaded, is to bring the world to Pitlochry and take Pitlochry to the world. When I read that in the prospectus (for the job), I thought: 'I can do that.'

“It really made me think about what was possible. In a way, I want to counter a lot of the things that I felt that Pitlochry stood for, for me, which was that I didn't have a place there.

"I want to make sure that more Scottish people have a place there and more Scottish talent has a chance to commune with great artists from the rest of the world."

Cumming, who has had dual UK and US citizenship since 2008, bought a new home in Perthshire three years ago and suggested he would return to Scotland permanently if Donald Trump was re-elected.

Speaking at the Lyceum event, he said: "It's been our plan for the last few years to split our time more evenly between here and New York.

"We've made a life for ourselves here (in Scotland) and in the course of doing that all these other things have happened which have made us think that it was the right thing to do.

"It's so interesting that the Pitlochry thing has happened. The Traitors want me to come here for a month to film. I made a film in Scotland with Brian Cox this year.

“All these things have been kind of encouraging that move in our lives, including the fact America is in Armageddon.

"I was here for the American election making a film. It was so good to work and know that everyone on the set was as shocked and saddened as I was.

"In a way, I feel America has been teetering on the brink of awfulness for a long, long time."

One of Cumming’s first major productions with Pitlochry Festival Theatre could be a stage musical adaptation of The High Life, the short-lived 1990s Scottish airline sitcom he created with Forbes Masson after they had decided to stop performing as Victor and Barry.

They have joined forces with writer and director Johnny McKnight to create the new National Theatre of Scotland production, which Cumming revealed will launch early in 2026.

Recalling the behind-the-scenes struggles involved in making the original TV show, Cumming said: “Victor and Barry sort of transmogrified into Steve and Sebastian.

“I think one of the reasons it was a success was because it was made by BBC London, rather than BBC Scotland.

“In a way, we got away with so much more because our bosses didn't understand what we were saying. We railed against them.

“It happens a lot that people want you to do something because you're weird, eccentric and exotic, then as soon as they get you they want you to be generic, boring and dull.

"It was a really difficult process. We were fighting our corner. It felt like they were not supporting us and not getting it. We were really ballsy. We actually asked for the director to be changed."

Cumming said the BBC executives in charge of the show had been unhappy with the script for a final episode of the series.

He added: "We took the script and gave it back to them without changing a single word.

“At the next meeting they were like 'You've addressed all the issues.' It was a half hour show. How long would it have taken them to read it?

“In a way, that really cemented our disrespect for the people we were working with. It made us more ballsy and we decided we weren't going to do it again. When it came out, it was a huge hit and they were all over us like a rash. But we ended up not doing it again."

Cumming said he and Masson had been approached by the National Theatre of Scotland several years ago about a possible stage musical revival of The High Life, but the project did not get off the ground until the pair met McKnight, who also pitched the idea to them.

Cumming said: "Johnny is now writing the stage musical with us. Forbes has written all these new things and we are touring it in early 2026. If it wasn't for Johnny we wouldn't be doing it. He was the catalyst.

"We recently did a week-long workshop with these young musical-theatre actors. They weren't even born when The High Life was on."