Alan Cumming is currently performing his one man show about legendary bard Robert Burns, and had a very special guest in the audience this week.
Sharing photos after the show, the X-Men actor uploaded a gushing post alongside sweet photos of him and the First Minister. Taking to Instagram, he wrote: "It doesn’t get more Scottish than having the leader of your country come to see you playing your country’s bard in your country’s capital city during the Edinburgh festival!
Continuing, he said: "I feel Burns is asking people to look again at something they thought they knew or understood. Similarly Scotland is asking itself again who it is, what its values are and how it wishes to be perceived in the world. It’s truly an honour to be part of the Scottish cultural landscape and able to make work that both challenges and celebrates who we are. And also some other post show japes with chums old and new…"
Alan, 57, is performing his one man dance show which focuses beyond just Scotland's national bard's poetry works to focus on the man himself - his poverty, his personal tragedy, his struggles with mental health and his spectacular success.
Speaking to The Guardian, the actor said in popular imagination we think of Burns as “romping in the hay and ploughing, and ‘Oh, here’s a poem!’” but he had “inklings” there was more to Burns than that. “And actually I think he was quite a tortured soul.”
The bard had numerous affairs and illegitimate children while married to Jean Armour. “I was initially drawn to him when thinking about desire,” says Cumming. "How we have to constantly battle with having the life that we want and controlling our desires. I thought it was interesting the way he lived his life: his sexuality and promiscuity and the mess he made.
"He was a rock star,” Cumming adds, “but a rock star who had a huge hit – his first book of poems was massive – and then the difficult second album.” He continued: “Writing in Scots was a choice for him, like the Proclaimers coming along and singing in Scottish accents, it’s radical and amazing.”
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