Alan Cumming reveals plans to play Succession star Brian Cox’s on-screen brother in Scottish Highland distillery drama

Glenrothan starting Alan Cumming and Brian Cox is expected to be filmed later this year

They have been two of Scotland’s leading stage and screen stars for decades.

Now Alan Cumming and Brian Cox are to join forces on a new film – to play two estranged brothers who are reunited after 40 years.

Glenrothan, which will be set in a fictional distillery town of the same name, will also see Cox make his debut as a director. The story will see the two brothers, who have not spoken since a violent exchange with their father on the day of their mother's funeral, put their differences aside and join forces to try to save the family-owned distillery.

Alan Cumming is the host of the American version of The Traitors. Picture: Peacock

Filming is set to take place in Glasgow and Cumming’s native Perthshire, including Aberfeldy, the town where he grew up, this year after plans to make the movie last year were put on hold. Cox previously cited exhaustion for the delay.

The Succession star, who is nearly 20 years older than Cumming, has been developing Glenrothan with Scottish writer David Ashton, creator of McLevy, the radio drama series about a fictional 19th-century Edinburgh detective.

Cumming was speaking ahead of his return to the live stage in Scotland on Saturday when the world tour of his latest cabaret show arrives in Glasgow.

He has recently been in Scotland to film a new season of the American version of The Traitors and a travel show following the iconic Royal Scotsman as it journeys through some of Scotland’s most iconic landscapes.

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

Cumming and fellow Scottish actor Forbes Masson will be launching a new book later this year, which will be published to mark the 40th anniversary of Victor & Barry, their cabaret double act, appearing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time.

The screenplay for Glenrothan has been co-written by Ashton and award-winning screenwriter Jeff Murphy, who is best known for his work on the TV detective series Hinterland.

Cumming told The Scotsman: “My character has gone away to find a new life in America and the other brother has stayed in Scotland to run the family business. They have a troubled relationship and there is family strife.Brian [is] directing and playing the somewhat older brother. I’ll be growing a beard, which I always do when I feel that I have to look older.

"It has a lovely script, so I’m really looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be filming in and around Aberfeldy, ironically, as I was born there and I’m the patron of the cinema there.”

Actor Brian Cox at a 'Succession' premiere in Stockholm, Sweden, last year. Picture: Michael Campanella/Getty Images

When Glenrothan was first announced more than two years ago, Cox said: “Glenrothan is my homage to the elements that make Scotland such an extraordinary country, where vibrancy and majesty of the land is expressed through passion and desire – balanced by the Scots’ deep-rooted humour and grasp of the absurd."

Cox described his Glenrothan character as “the boring one" in an interview last year.

He said: “I do boring rather well, actually. He is the one who stayed behind, who ended up holding the baby, so to speak, and the one who left. But he was the natural distiller. He had the gift. My character is not well, so he asks his brother to go back, but he ignores him. Then his daughter sort of kidnaps him and brings him back to Scotland. And the adventure begins.”