Will Alan Cumming help Pitlochry become new culture capital?

The Herald Scotland

10-07-2025

A new contender suddenly emerged last September when Pitlochry Festival Theatre unveiled one of Scotland's best-known stage and screen stars as its new figurehead.
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Alan Cumming's appointment as artistic director was a breathtakingly bold move made at a time when the Scottish theatre world was very much in the doldrums.
The combined impact of prolonged pandemic restrictions, more than a decade of standstill funding, soaring costs and Scottish Government cuts had driven many of Scottish theatre's most senior figures to the break of despair and out the door, in some cases.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre wants to become 'a cultural beacon locally, nationally and internationally' by 2029.
Last summer's Edinburgh festivals ended in acrimony over the sudden shutdown of a vital Scottish Government fund for artists, with actors protesting on stage at the targeting of the arts for cuts again.
The actor's appointment weeks later offered more than a glimpse of an optimistic future ahead for the industry, which has finally been able to plan ahead for the first time in years in January when new Scottish Government funding was confirmed up to 2028.
Sunshine on Leith has been among the biggest hits at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in recent years.
Pitlochry arguably trumped the Edinburgh International Festival's undoubted coup in landing violinist Nicola Benedetti as both its first female director and first Scottish director.
It certainly highlighted the level of ambition of Pitlochry's board and executive director, Kris Bryce, who launched a search for a 'truly visionary leader" last year.
Nessie has been among the most recent productions staged at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
The key goal they set out in the artistic director's job description was to established the theatre as "a cultural beacon locally, nationally and internationally" by 2029.
Pitlochry has a lot to thank Cumming's successor, Elizabeth Newman for. She 'planted the seed' that he could potentially take over the running of the theatre when he visited to film his railway travel show and left firm foundations for him to build on.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre has been hosting productions since 1951. (Image: free)
Newman's hugely successful tenure saw the theatre battle through the pandemic with imaginative programming and new partnerships forged with other venues, the opening of an outdoor amphitheatre and an indoor studio theatre, and the launch of acclaimed new versions of the musicals Sunshine on Leith, The Sound of Music and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
But what can audiences expect from the Cumming era?
He immediately promised to 'bring the world's best theatre artists here and showcase the best of Scotland's thrilling theatrical legacy.'
It will be intriguing to see how Cumming plans to deliver on the first pledge given the relatively tight budget he has to play with.
Although the theatre's annual Scottish Government will have doubled by next year since Cumming was appointed, it will still only amount to £850,000 a year for what has become Scotland's leading venue for in-house theatre productions.
However it seems almost certain that Cumming's star power will see his theatre attract more commercial backers than ever before.
With Cumming extremely well connected after decades of working in Broadway and Hollywood, the possibilities of which stars and companies he may be able to lure to Pitlochry, and the potential spin-offs for the Perthshire town and Scottish tourism, are endless.
Scotland's theatre actors, writers and directors will, of course, be intrigued to see how Cumming's second pledge is realised.
He has already said he wants to 'counter' what he felt Pitlochry's theatre had stood for in the past, recalling how he was told 'not to bother' auditioning for shows there when he graduated from drama school in Glasgow, and suggesting it had traditionally favoured English actors instead of Scots.
Cumming recently suggested he would look to revive 'some of the great plays that have been written in Scotland in recent decades, and often only had very short first runs.'
He already has a long-standing working relationship with the National Theatre of Scotland, which will continue next year with the long-awaited reboot of the TV sitcom The High Life as a stage musical, which has seen him return to working with Victor and Barry sparring partner Forbes Masson.
Although The High Life tour will not be visiting Pitlochry, Cumming has suggested he will be taking to its stage in at least one major show next year. It will be no surprise if his debut programme features a strong mix of well-known Scottish actors and home-grown talents.
Pitlochry's theatre, which has attracted an audience in excess of 100,000 in recent years, boasts a fiercely loyal following, many of whom are drawn from around Perthshire and return to the venue at least once a year.
Even without knowing what Cumming has up its sleeve, his arrival in Pitlochry seems certain to attract a much bigger audience from across Scotland, including many of have never previously set foot in the town.