Throughout his 40-year career, Alan Cumming has done a lot. He is an actor, writer, director and presenter, and his work spans stage, film and TV. He has worked with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls, appeared in GoldenEye and X-Men 2, starred for seven seasons as political spinmeister Eli Gold in The Good Wife and earned a Tony Award for his Emcee in Cabaret. Next up is actor Brian Cox’s directorial debut Glenrothan, released on 17 April, a drama of death, family estrangement and the survival of a whisky distillery in the Scottish Highlands.
Latterly, he has delighted reality-TV audiences as host of The Traitors US, channelling dandy Scottish laird with a pinch of Bond villain and winning an Emmy in the process. The show is filmed at Ardross Castle in the Highlands. It brings Alan back to the land of his birth, which is welcome because, for this proud Scot, you can take the man out of Scotland (he moved to the USA in 1998), but you cannot take Scotland out of the man.
“I have never been one of those people who said, ‘Urrgh, Scotland is crap,’ and couldn’t wait to get away,” he says. “I have always thought it was so beautiful, and hoped to spend more time here one day, as I’m doing now.” In fact, this year, Alan will be mostly based here, thanks not only to The Traitors US but also to his new position as artistic director at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Scotland’s only major rurally located arts organisation.
Joining Pitlochry Festival Theatre
The role has plunged Alan deep into Scotland's cultural life and provided an unexpected and exciting challenge. “It is all the things I love,” he says. “I love Scotland, I love the theatre and the vitality and spunk of Scottish artists, and I love shaking things up a bit.” It is also, he says, a chance to give something back. “It’s exciting to make great theatre here and to give a shot in the arm to the arts in Scotland.” The timing felt perfect, too. “I don’t think I would have been at all interested in this job 20 years ago or even ten,” he says. “I feel all roads have led me this way.”
Alan was born in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, and grew up near Carnoustie on the Panmure Estate, but only visited Pitlochry Festival Theatre for the first time in 2023, when he was filming All Aboard! Scotland’s Poshest Train, a documentary about The Royal Scotsman. “My eyes were opened to the size of the campus, the facilities and how magical and stunning it was,” he says. A seed was planted, too. The then artistic director Elizabeth Newman asked Alan if he had considered running a theatre. “I was like, no!” he says,“but then my mind started to expand with the possibilities, not just all the productions I could do, but even how I would change the lighting in the foyer!”
Starting afresh
Under his leadership, the theatre no longer operates the repertory system, with the same company of actors performing all the plays. It means Alan can attract big names. “The people I am inviting wouldn’t have done seven months of rep, but they will come and do two and a half months here,” he says. “That makes the season more starry, kapowey and eclectic, with very different things banging up against each other.”
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Alan’s inaugural season, which begins in May, brims with new plays and musicals, many by Scottish writers, and when it comes to enticing world-class talent to Pitlochry, he has unapologetically bigged up the theatre’s rural location. “I’m saying, how exciting, come away from all the glare! Come to this beautiful place (it’s Brigadoon!) and work in this wonderful facility. I’m painting it as this great adventure. I want to make it a destination.”
It seems to have worked. Celebrated actors including Simon Russell Beale [who has trodden the boards on both sides of the Atlantic] and Shirley Henderson [star of Happy Valley and Harry Potter] will be performing, and news of Alan taking on the artistic directorship was broken not by the local press but by The Hollywood Reporter. “It is a sign that things are changing,” he laughs. In January, Out in the Hills, a new festival celebrating all things LGBTQIA+, launched Alan’s first year of events, with Sir Ian McKellen and Graham Norton among the star-studded line-up. “I think Scotland is much more progressive than people think, socially and politically,” he says.
Nevertheless, when it came to programming his first season, Alan was careful to respect the local theatregoers. “I don’t want to scare away the great audiences we have,” he says, “but I want to do things that I like and feel proud of. I am encouraging them to come and see the people and plays they know, but also to take a chance on the things they don’t.”
What is coming up next?
Musicals have always been popular at Pitlochry, and Alan has scheduled in four musical works, as well as the Bard with Lear. “Scottish theatre has not done much Shakespeare for a long time and I think that’s wrong,” he says. “I wanted to bring that back, but with a great actor, Maureen Beattie, who people know and are excited to see in the lead role.” Did he not want the part himself? “No, Lear’s not ringing my bell yet,” he says. “And of course, I’m not nearly old enough!”
He has tackled his share of the Bard’s big beasts, though, and famously played all the parts in the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Macbeth in 2012. “I nearly died doing that,” he says. “My body was a mess; physically and mentally, it was so intense.” Even so, he is “slightly toying” with bringing Macbeth back to Pitlochry in 2028. “There are very few jobs I don’t look back on with some degree of fondness,” he says.
That includes his early break as evil Jim Hunter in Take the High Road [a classic Scottish soap opera], who was the first character to be murdered in the series: “Obviously it was hilarious, but what great training,” he says. “Working with the camera, dealing with not-great material, having to make lots of exposition not sound like lots of exposition. People can be sniffy about soaps, but I was lucky to have had that opportunity to learn so much.”
Who knew, 40 years later, it would lead to The Traitors US? “Everyone was like, ‘You’re doing what?’ when I explained it was a competition reality show,” says Alan. He treats the host as a character, keeping his distance throughout filming to add to the drama and menace. “I have to be quite a disciplinarian and the players should be slightly scared of me,” he says. “That’s why I stand back from it all.” Could he take part? “I don’t know. I’ve noticed that usually in episode five or six, players start making stupid decisions; these sort of collective, Lord of the Flies, irrational judgments. I wonder if I could resist that. Probably not.”
While Alan describes The Traitors as a “hoot”, he speaks of his role at Pitlochry Festival Theatre as “like a homecoming”, connecting him with Scotland and the landscapes that have shaped and moved him over the years. The west coast, where he holidayed as a boy, remains a favourite location. “It is so magical, striking and otherworldly,” he says, and the Standing Stones of Callanish on Lewis are a new favourite. “I am obsessed by them!”
Even in the US, Alan’s Scottish roots have unconsciously influenced his choice of home. “I have a place in upstate New York and the terrain is very similar to where I grew up on the east coast: hilly, woody, beautiful,” he says. “When my brother first came to stay, he said, ‘You’ve bought your childhood.’ It took me a long time to realise how much I love that landscape, the nature and forest, being in the middle of nowhere. I am comforted by the remoteness.”
Now, he and husband Grant have a house near Inverness in the Highlands, where his grandparents on both sides were from. His connection to the place is more than nostalgic, and links to his childhood with an abusive and violent father. “When we visited my grandparents, because they were there, my dad wouldn’t hit us, so now I realise I associate that area with comfort and safety,” he says. “That’s why I’ve made my home there.”
The house was built in 1708 and has a pond (named Loch Lala after Alan’s beloved dog) and a sauna. “You go in the sauna, then jump into Loch Lala, swim around and come back to an outdoor shower,” he says. Sounds like the perfect way to relax after what promises to be a busy first season at Pitlochry. Will it feed him or deplete him? “We’ll see,” he laughs.
Whatever shape Alan is in by the end of the year, he hopes the audiences find their theatre experiences transformative. “People should laugh, cry, think, gasp and have their imaginations expanded,” he says. “Most of all, I want them to be surprised. There’s no reason why, in the middle of a town in the Highlands, there should be this incredible international theatre destination. That’s what I think is great. It should surprise you.”
This or that?
Rural or coastal?
Rural. That’s hard because coastal can mean too many things. Rural means you’re away from everything
Pub lunch or afternoon tea?
Pub lunch
Champagne or whisky?
[Long pause] Whisky
Wild swim or forest bathe?
Wild swim. I love being shocked
Morning or evening person?
Evening, but annoyingly for my job I have to be a morning person
Spring or autumn in the Highlands?
Spring, it’s a bit more uplifting. Close call, though
Fresh flowers or houseplants?
Houseplants
Downton Abbey or The Archers?
The Archers – I find it comforting
Dogs or cats?
Dogs. I have two rescue dogs: Lala and Jerry
Find out more at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
