Alan Cumming recalls festival struggles before he hit stardom

Hollywood actor Alan Cumming recalls one of his early appearances at the Edinburgh Festival – a time when it was a struggle to attract an audience.

Cumming and Forbes Masson took their Victor and Barry show to the world renowned arts celebration in the capital, but it proved to be a lonely experience at times.

“You had that classic fringe movement of nobody being there,” Cumming told Scotland Tonight.

“Yeah. One night nobody came. I mean, not that many people came most other nights. A cat wandered through and we were just standing there and so we just did the show, we could do with the practice.”

But the experience didn’t deter Cumming. Edinburgh has been a massive part of his career and he makes a long-awaited return at this year’s edition of the festival.

Cumming is delivering the first UK performances of his new show Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, an evening of story and song that celebrates ageing.

He is now a headline act and a long time has passed since the days of Victor and Barry, although Cumming hinted the comedy duo could make a return in the near future.

“You know, you have a laugh with your friend and you make up things, have a few drinks. And that was what we were doing. And suddenly we were on TV doing it.

“It was surreal. Forbes and I are sort of planning a little Victor and Barry something, so we’ve been talking a lot about our past.”

It wasn’t, however, until Cumming appeared in Scottish cult classics Taggart and Take the High Road that he started to be recognised while out and about – including in the toilets of a pub on Byres Road in the west end of Glasgow.

“I was in the gents peeing in the urinal and there was a man peeing next to me, this man just said to me ‘is that you that tried to kill that we lassie? It was a reference to the time when Cumming’s character, the evil woodcutter Jim Hunter, tried to kill Teri Lally by deliberately toppling a tree on top of her.

“You’ve never seen a loo clear so fast,” Cumming laughed.

And on to the present, Cumming says he still sees himself moving forward and has several projects in the pipeline that excite him.

I’ve been talking about this, it’s actually going to happen next year, this dance piece.

“I normally just bounce around and tend to wear a rabbit suit or something whilst I’m dancing. I love getting dressed up in funny costumes and dancing, but there’s another reason why they’re coming to see do a dance piece, because it’s not just my dance prowess.

“It’s, I guess, to see if I survive.”

The full interview is available on Scotland Tonight at 7.30pm on Thursday August 12.