ALAN Cumming has promised to provide Scottish artists and performers with more opportunities at the theatre he will be leading which he claims has previously been an “impenetrable bubble of Englishness”.
The actor has suggested home-grown talent has been shunned by the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in years gone by.
The theatre has appointed Cumming – who grew up in nearby Aberfeldy – as artistic director.
He has told how he was advised "not to bother" auditioning for shows at the historic venue when he graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy for Music and Drama in Glasgow in the mid-1980s.
Cumming recalled how the theatre was seen as a “bubble of Englishness” and, while he said its approach has now changed, he wants to “counter” what he feels it has stood for in the past.
He said: "When I graduated from drama school, everybody said ‘don't bother auditioning for Pitlochry. They only ever hire English actors. They will never employ you’.
"To me, it was a bubble of Englishness which was impenetrable. That has obviously changed over the years.
"When I went there to film recently, I thought it had an incredible campus and facilities.
“In a way, I want to counter a lot of the things that I felt that Pitlochry stood for, for me, which was that I didn't have a place there.
“I want to make sure that more Scottish people have a place there and more Scottish talent has a chance to commune with great artists from the rest of the world."
The stage and screen star also spoke of his dismay at the demise of Scottish theatres as social hubs since he first started performing.
Cumming, who has been based in New York since the 1990s, was speaking at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh at an in-conversation fundraising event with broadcaster Kirsty Wark.
He admitted there had been a "confluence" of factors involved in interest in the Pitlochry job, including a desire to spend more time in Scotland with his husband, Grant, buying a home in the Highlands and working on shows like The Traitors, in Easter Ross.
Cumming, who spoke of his anger at the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House, said the fact America was now "in Armageddon" had confirmed that he and his husband had made the right decision.
He revealed the “seed” of working at the theatre had been planted by his predecessor as artistic director, Elizabeth Newman, months before she announced her departure after six years.
The first major productions programme by Cumming, whose appointment was announced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre in September, are not expected to be staged until early in 2026.
"I feel like we've lost the sense of the theatre as a centre of community, as a church. I want Pitlochry Festival Theatre to be the most exciting place to come to in the town, even if you never see a play. You will be in a theatre building meeting and engaging with other people,” Cumming went on.
"My first season doesn't kick in until 2026, but I've got all these ideas that I want to try out over the next year that will hopefully really engage the community, and make the theatre a really vibrant and exciting place to come to."
