Alan Cumming and John Tiffany on staging Once at Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Alan Cumming’s first Pitlochry Festival Theatre season opens later this month with a re-staging of the hit musical Once, based on John Carney’s award-winning film. He and director John Tiffany tell Joyce McMillan how this Scottish premiere production came about, and how it fits into the rest of the Pitlochry season
Until a couple of years ago, Alan Cumming had never visited Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Scotland’s much-loved Theatre In The Hills. He was born, back in 1964, in nearby Aberfeldy, and grew up just 40 miles away near Carnoustie; but somehow, even when he became a theatre student in Glasgow in the early 1980s, he never felt that the theatre in Pitlochry was part of his world.
So it wasn’t until 2023 - when Pitlochry’s then artistic director Elizabeth Newman invited him to come and have a look - that he first experienced the pure magic of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. Newman told him, that day, that she was thinking of leaving for a new job in Sheffield; and gently nudged him to consider whether he might have something to offer, as the theatre’s next artistic director.
And the rest is history; so that now, two and a half years on, Cumming is about to launch his first Pitlochry season, a blockbuster of a programme that offers 11 shows across three Pitlochry spaces, plus a generous range of other happenings, events, discussions, and chances to participate.
“I am a product of Scottish subsidised theatre,” says Cumming, currently on tour around Scotland in the musical The High Life, “and I have always really wanted to pay something back to it. So when the Pitlochry job came up, it just felt like a chance I couldn’t miss, to really use all the connections I’ve built up over the years, and to try to show everyone the type of work that I believe is possible. So I aimed high. I wanted brilliant people, exciting shows, and exciting ideas - and I must say it really hasn’t been difficult to persuade people to get involved.
“I knew I would have to change the traditional rep structure of the Pitlochry season, because you just can’t get well known people with a lot of commitments to come to Pitlochry for a whole summer; and I know some people will miss that. But these days, people tend to come to Pitlochry for a day or two rather than a week; and we really hope this season will be sometimes provocative, yes, but also easy to relate to, and full of the kind of storytelling that people love.”
Cumming’s season opens next week with a re-staging of the musical based on John Carney’s award-winning 2007 film Once, a tender and complex low-budget love story about two struggling musicians in Dublin. For the Pitlochry production, the musical’s original New York and London director John Tiffany - formerly of the Traverse and the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) - has brought his much-awarded 2012 creative team back together, to present the show’s Scottish premiere.
“I just remember how Alan was willing to turn up for me and Vicky Featherstone when we were starting out at the NTS,” says Tiffany, recalling Cummings’ performances in shows including The Bacchae, and his famous near-solo version of Macbeth, “and now I’m delighted to turn up for him at Pitlochry. Once is a very complicated and bitter sweet love story; Enda Walsh, who scripted the stage version, said it was like trying to catch a butterfly. But it is a great story that reminds us of our humanity, and of how creativity in music or theatre can change lives; and I hope Pitlochry audiences will love that, and revel in it.”
This stellar opening show is followed at breathless pace by a new version of Lear starring Maureen Beattie as the troubled king; a production of Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Williams’s beautiful 2024 two-hander A History Of Paper featuring Cumming himself with Shirley Henderson; and Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days starring Siobhan Redmond, one of Cumming’s co-stars in The High Life.
Meanwhile, in the Studio Theatre, there’s a new play by Douglas Maxwell starring Scottish theatre stars Adura Onashile and Sandy Grierson; a new play based on Jean Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine co-written by Cumming and performed by Frances Ruffelle; a revival of Iain Heggie’s 2001 play Wiping My Mother’s Arse starring brilliant writer, actor and panto king Johnny McKnight; and the world premiere of a new Martin Sherman play about Liberace, I’ll Be Seeing You, directed by Cumming, and featuring British stage superstar Simon Russell Beale.
Then in the autumn, there’s a new Noisemaker musical called Ceilidh, to be staged in Pitlochry Town Hall, and the new stage version of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie co-produced by the Lyceum and the NTS. And finally, there will be a Pitlochry Christmas production of My Fair Lady, starring Cumming as Professor Higgins; to round off what is easily the most packed and high-profile 2026 season on offer from any of Scotland’s big producing theatres.
“I certainly made a lot of calls, and ate a lot of lunches,” says Cumming. “I began to see how we could honour the past of Scottish theatre while also supporting new work, and including many different perspectives. And yes, I do like to be flexible and can-do about things - that’s why it was possible for Siobhan’s Happy Days to be added to the programme months after the rest of the shows, when we decided to stage Ceilidh in the actual Town Hall, rather than trying to make the auditorium look like a town hall.
“Above all,” he adds, “I’ve tried to lead with my heart, in doing this; and to be authentic in my response to people and their ideas. I just want people to come and see how lovely the place is, to get a great welcome, and to have a great time. And of course, we’re now beginning to work on how we can do it all over again, in 2027; but that’s another story, for another day.”
Once is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 23 May until 27 June. The 2026 Pitlochry season continues until 31 December; for details see www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com
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