Alan Cumming

Interview: Alan Cumming on staging a one-man Macbeth

Aberfeldy’s most famous son on the toil and trouble of Shakespeare

25 May 2012

How much doom and gloom can one man take? For most actors, it would be enough of a mental burden to take on the role of Macbeth, the warrior king whose ambition leads to self-destruction. But for Alan Cumming, that’s only the start of it. In a new…

CATS awards to be hosted by Alan Cumming

David Harrower, Maureen Beattie and Stuart Bowman in the running for prestigious theatre awards

23 May 2012

He’s one of the busiest actors at work today, preparing for curtain up on his one-man version Macbeth, but Alan Cumming is to take time out from rehearsals to host this year’s Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland. The CATS, which this year celebrates…

The Tempest

Helen Mirren, Tom Conti, David Strathairn, Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming star in Shakespeare adap

2 Mar 2011

(PG) 109min After her baroque but static stab at Titus Andronicus, Julie Taymor turns her attention to Shakespeare’s final play, with Helen Mirren centre-stage as not Prospero but Propera, the island-bound magician who toys with a group of…

Alan Cumming to perform free show at Glasgow's King’s Theatre

Scots-born actor in NTS show combining discussion and performance

18 Nov 2011

For Scots-born actor Alan Cumming, a single performance at the King’s Theatre Glasgow on Saturday 26th November, will mark a return to his roots in more ways than one. Panto, Variety and the Scottish People, will see Cumming delve into Scotland’s…

Best of a decade: Respectable in the Noughties

2 Dec 2009

Much of the most powerful art produced in Scotland in the 1980s–1990s developed in angry reaction to the political situation and tapped into our radical, left-wing and egalitarian traditions – it’s no accident that the most popular works of that period…

Theatre critic Mark Fisher on the Shakespeare productions planned for 2012

Alan Cumming, David Hayman and more to stage the Bard next year

13 Dec 2011

In 1964, the Polish critic Jan Kott published Shakespeare, our Contemporary. The book caused a stir for framing a long-dead playwright through the lens of 20th century totalitarianism. Director Peter Brook was delighted to find a commentator who could…

Fringe 2010 cabaret offerings are as colourful as ever

Smoke & Mirrors, Alan Cumming and The Crack

30 Jul 2010

From pared down to jazz-hands up, this year’s variety and cabaret offerings are as colourful as ever. Anna Millar meets the makers to find out why we just can’t get enough It’s a certain man who can shimmy from club door whore to straight-talking…

Combat Models: Jackboots on Whitehall

2 Jun 2010

If you only see one puppet-based, all-star World War II comedy epic at this year’s EIFF, it surely has to be Jackboots on Whitehall, the long-gestated project of the McHenry brothers, Ed and Rory. Set in an alternative universe where Nazis have…

Alan Cumming, Calvin Harris and Glasvegas among nominees at Scottish Style Awards 2009

30 Oct 2009

Glasgow certainly knows how to do things with class, and this year’s Scottish Style Awards look set to raise the bar even higher. The starry event takes place on Hallowe’en and their stylish cauldron is likely to be spilling over with high profile…

New work and literary adaptations form the back bone of the National Theatre’s season

18 Apr 2008

The National Theatre of Scotland have just announced their 08/09 season, a programme dominated by emergent theatre makers and literary adaptations. John Tiffany will direct 'Be Near Me', an adaptation of Scottish writer Andrew O’Hagan’s hugely acclaimed…

The Bacchae

16 Aug 2007

There have been many and varied interpretations of Euripedes’ classic over the years. There’s the conventional reading, contrasting the straight-laced and controlling personality against the sensual hedonist (witness the various productions of the 90s…

The Bacchae

Edinburgh International Festival

19 Jul 2007

Edinburgh International Festival Countdown to ecstasy There’s more to me than fluff and frivolity, insists Perthshire lad Alan Cumming, as he prepares for his most hedonistic role yet. Mark Fisher raises a glass to the god of good times