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Scotsman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Alan Cumming to reprise iconic High Life role in major new 'unashamedly Scottish' musical 'romp'
The new play comes 30 years after the cult TV comedy series was originally aired Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... It was a hit Scottish series which ran for just six episodes and a pilot, gaining cult status before being axed due to one of its stars' burgeoning Hollywood career. Now Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson are to reprise their original High Life roles in an 'unashamedly Scottish' stage musical version of the cult 1990s TV series. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad NTS Mr Cumming and Mr Masson will star as Sebastian Flight and Steve McCracken in High Life The Musical, which will tour Scotland next year. Siobhan Redmond and Patrick Ryecart will also star as Shona Spurtle and Captain Hilary Duff. The High Life was first commissioned and broadcast by the BBC 30 years ago, created by and featuring Mr Cumming and Mr Masson, who met as students at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Taking place in the fictional Air Scotia airline flying out of Prestwick Airport, the High Life centres around air stewards Steve, Sebastian and Shona. Launched as an initial pilot in 1994 and a series of six episodes which were broadcast in early 1995, it was understood a second series was never made due to Mr Cumming's increasingly successful career, which has seen him act in productions including James Bond hit Golden Eye and TV show The Good Wife. He has also hosted the US version of The Traitors, filmed in Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Cumming and Mr Masson told The Scotsman the idea to create the play initially came from the National Theatre of Scotland, which has commissioned the production. 'It's a really good idea, it makes total sense,' says Mr Cumming. 'A Scottish property that was loved, turning it into a theatrical version of that, it's a no brainer.' However, years passed and the pair admit they 'didn't get it together', until a chance meeting with Scottish stage writer Jonny McKnight created the 'spark' which saw the project come to fruition. 'I was doing a show in Glasgow and Forbes came to see it the same night as Johnny McKnight came to see it,' recalls Mr Cumming., Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'We had such a laugh, the three of us. It was such fun. Then the next day, Johnny called me up said, 'Hey, have you guys ever thought of doing a musical of the High Life? 'I said, 'You know what, we have, Johnny. And would you like to help us write it?' The production will be touring Scotland in spring 2026, with previews and opening performance at Dundee Rep Theatre from 28 March, the onward touring to HMT Aberdeen, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Eden Court Theatre and King's Theatre Glasgow until 18 May 2026. The stage show, which will feature new and original music, focuses on the sale of Air Scotia. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Cumming hopes the musical will retain the 'bit scrappy, bit surreal' atmosphere of the original show, but admitted some more serious issues are touched upon, due to Flight and McCracken's more mature age. He says: 'People are obviously coming with reminisce and fondness. People really love it, so I think they will be coming with that love, but also to see what [the characters] are up to now.' Both characters still work as air stewards, but Mr Masson admits their advancing age has changed the focus of the show. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Both of the main protagonists, Steve and Sebastian, are now over 60, so there are all the things that come with that, and all of the reminiscences and the sudden realisation that their lives are now in their autumn years,' he says. 'Scotland has changed as well [since the original show] and it's about how the characters embrace the present and the future, but also remember what the past taught us. Age is a big theme in it.' Mr Cumming adds: 'It's a celebration of a show that was a huge success 30 years ago. We're doing in a different form. We're older, we're coming back together.' He says he was 'surprised by how little' material was 'potentially offensive', 30 years later, but admits that some cultural references have had to be updated, recalling a part in the script which mentioned a Stanley cup - the cult water bottle propelled to fame on social media. 'Neither of us had any idea what that was,' he admits. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The pair, who began their working life together when they formed comedy double act Victor and Barry in 1982, describe the concept as 'really surreal', and 'unashamedly Scottish'. They describe the new show as a 'romp', freed of restrictions implemented on the original series by the London-based BBC. 'It's that long Scottish tradition of surreal comedy,' Mr Masson says. 'And the show is really bonkers. 'We're playing with silly ideas and it's great that we can be unashamedly Scottish, because it's a Scottish tour, it's a Scottish show, we're not having to water it down in any way, as we had to do slightly when we did the TV show. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'We stood our ground, but because the TV show was made in London, there was a lot of things that London people didn't understand. And that was quite good, in a way, because they didn't understand a lot of the swearing.' NTS Mr Cumming adds: 'I think we are leaning into our Scottishness a bit more than we would have done.' Recently chronicled in the book Victor and Barry's Kelvinside Compendium – A Meander Down Memory Close, a 40th anniversary celebration of their birth, Mr Cumming and Mr Masson's original characters were morphed into the High Life's Steve and Sebastian. As well as cult fans of the show, Mr Cumming and Mr Masson hope to attract a new audience too young to remember it the first time around. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad However, they say they are unlikely to do future High Life spin offs - although don't rule out working together in the future.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
2000s Actress Shares How She Approaches Shooting Sex Scenes at 53
It's all in a day's work for Amanda Peet. "Dude, I've been doing this for so long, I'm just like, 'Show me where to be. Show me who to kiss. Who do I have to make out with today?'" Peet recently told People. The actress, known for her roles in 'The Whole Nine Yards' and 'The Good Wife,' is starring in 'Your Friends & Neighbors' on Apple TV+ where she has steamy love scenes with Jon Hamm, who plays her estranged husband, and Mark Tallman, who her character has an affair with."I love my stuff with Jon," she said of her scenes with Hamm. "He's a gentleman, and he's a really good leader on the set. He's not a snob, and I appreciate that." Peet also joked that she's so used to having a love scene on camera that she automatically assumes she has one just by seeing the show's intimacy coordinator. 'She's like, 'No, dear. It's somebody else,'" she a sex scene may be easy Peet these days, the actress recently said on 'Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen,' that appearing on 'Seinfeld' in 1997, where she made out with Jerry Seinfeld, was "rough." "I had a lot of stage fright. I was really scared," Peet said, rating her performance a "5" as part of a game on the Bravo show. The season finale episode of 'Your Friends & Neighbors' airs this Friday. 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 2000s Actress Shares How She Approaches Shooting Sex Scenes at 53 first appeared on Parade on May 27, 2025
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In a pinch, the writers of ‘Shrinking' turn to their acting ‘assassin': Michael Urie
Ever since landing the career-making role of gay assistant/fashionista Marc St. James on 'Ugly Betty' — at 25, just three years out of Juilliard — Michael Urie has been a busy, award-winning actor unbridled by being unabashedly out. Over the last 20 years, he's glided between TV ('Modern Family,' 'The Good Wife,' 'Younger'), film ('Beverly Hills Chihuahua,' 'Single All the Way,' 'Maestro') and Broadway ('How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,' 'Torch Song,' 'Once Upon a Mattress'). 'Whatever I'm currently doing is my favorite,' says the 44-year-old over video chat from the Manhattan apartment he shares with partner and fellow actor Ryan Spahn. 'I find the work itself feels the same. Working on a scene with Harrison Ford is not that different than being onstage with Sutton Foster. I'm opposite somebody at the top of their game, who knows this medium better than anyone, and they're treating me like a peer. I'm there and it's thrilling.' Ford is just one of the many 'titans' Urie feels he's surrounded by on his latest big gig, Apple TV+'s 'Shrinking,' where he plays attorney Brian, gay bestie to star Jason Segel's Jimmy, a straight, unorthodox psychotherapist struggling with the loss of his wife and raising his teen daughter on his own. Segel, who co-created the series with Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein, describes Urie's audition tape as electric and flawless. '[Michael's] not a guy who's showing up and figuring it out on the day,' he says of Urie's 'exceptional' prep work. 'Like a pinch hitter or an assassin, he comes in and just perfectly executes the assignment of every scene.' Segel notes that the spot-on work Urie delivered during the first season convinced the show's creative team he could shoulder the dramatic heft of what was planned for the second. In it, Brian tells Jimmy's daughter, Alice (Lukita Maxwell), how and why he has befriended the guilt-ridden drunk driver (Goldstein) who killed her mother — which, two episodes later, he repeats nearly verbatim to Jimmy, leading to much-needed catharsis all-around. The intense scenes were 'a huge, huge challenge I was so up for and so game to do,' Urie says, and 'easily the greatest gift anyone's ever given me in television.' 'He's just the best dude,' says Segel. 'It makes you want to write for [him]. It makes you want to see him thrive.' Given his success, it's hard to believe Urie almost didn't pursue acting professionally. Born to a seamstress mom and an oil industry draftsman dad in Houston but raised in Dallas-adjacent Plano alongside his older sister, Laura — a Bay Area psychologist who loves 'Shrinking' — he liked performing in plays as a teen but says, 'I didn't think anything like this was at all possible.' He wanted to be a filmmaker like his idol, Tim Burton, or maybe a high school drama teacher like those he worshiped along the way. All that changed when he entered a Texas-wide poetry reading competition as a high school senior. In the middle of a seven-minute piece interpreted in an appropriately serious manner, Urie elicited unexpected giggles from the audience. 'In the moment, I started to lean into everything they were finding funny,' he remembers, 'and I kept getting bigger and bigger laughs.' If walking away with that state championship made Urie seriously consider giving acting a shot, getting into Juilliard after auditioning on a whim made him believe he might succeed. 'I was like, 'Oh, my God! This is where Robin Williams, Patti LuPone, William Hurt and Kevin Kline went to school,'' he recalls. 'Suddenly, I'm in the club.' Urie's certainly made the most of that membership, and he remains thankful to have been given opportunities to bring so many shades of gay to LGBTQ+ audiences throughout the world. But 'Shrinking' has seriously broadened his brand. 'I'm being stopped on the street by more straight men than ever,' he reveals. 'It's empowering. What I feel is pride that all these straight men like Brian and think of him as their friend.' In Season 3, currently shooting in Los Angeles, Urie's Brian and his TV husband, Charlie (Devin Kawaoka), will tackle co-parenting their newly adopted child. 'It's not just the baby,' says Urie, resisting a gender reveal so as to not ruin the surprise. 'It's what the baby means to people around him: Charlie, the biological mother and Liz (Christa Miller). And how [being a] dad fits into the rest of his life, in these friendships, in this chosen family. So far, they've written big comedy and some super serious pathos.' Which is exactly as Urie likes it. Shocked and flattered by the growing Emmy buzz surrounding his Season 2 turn, he'd clearly be thrilled to win yet confesses he long ago gave up on accumulating awards. 'All I really wanna do is work,' he says. 'I'm way more comfortable on a set, in rehearsal or onstage than I am at a podium or on a red carpet.'
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
In an era of infinite TV, how do you commit to watching a new show?
Costarring Tim Daly as McCord's husband Henry, a theology professor and former Marine aviator, 'Madam Secretary' is smart and suspenseful in its depiction of the complex geopolitical environment Elizabeth has to operate within. It's part pressure-cooker, part chess match, and the same can be said of the fierce office politics she has to cope with in the White House. Advertisement So why did I drag my feet when it came to watching 'Madam Secretary'? Was it because it aired on fusty old CBS? Had I internalized the idea that a show on a broadcast network would inevitably be too formulaic to hold my interest, that the real action and boundary-pushing immediacy was to be found on premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime or on streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and Apple TV+? I don't think that's it. Snobbery has never been an element of my viewing habits. It makes no sense when it comes to television, a medium with a vast and varied menu. Moreover, the broadcast networks have been at this a long time, and they know what they're doing, at least once in a while. Advertisement Consider the superb new version of ' Or ' What was more likely at play was my reluctance to commit to a multi-season series (and the broadcast networks tend to have more episodes per season than cable or streaming platforms do). As consumers in the attention economy and the demand side of the supply-and-demand equation in an era of infinite supply, that's a factor a lot of us have to consider these days — at least those of us who are compulsive completists. The universe of shows worth watching just keeps expanding. We're so constantly bombarded with new series that FOMO has become our common condition. I still find it hard to give up on a TV show. As with novels, I need to see how it ends, and whether it gets worse or better along the way. When I told my nephew that I had (by that point) 'hate-watched' about 60 hours of Showtime's ' I still have several more seasons of 'Madam Secretary' to watch. Will it fall off a cliff, quality-wise, as onetime faves like 'The Good Wife' and 'Suits' did after a few stellar seasons? Or will it continue to meet reward my high hopes and expectations all the way through, like 'Breaking Bad' did? Advertisement I guess I'll find out. In the words of the immortal Elaine May, 'The only safe thing is to take a chance.'' Also? When someone whose judgment you trust gives you advice, take it. 'Madam Secretary' is available for purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+. Don Aucoin is the Globe's theater critic and an arts-critic-at-large. Don Aucoin can be reached at
NBC News
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC News
Michael J. Fox to guest star on next season of 'Shrinking'
Michael J. Fox is returning to his roots. The five-time Emmy Award winner will guest star in the third season of the Apple TV+ series 'Shrinking.' The streaming service and the actor shared a collaborative Instagram post with the news Thursday. 'Big feelings incoming. Michael J. Fox joins the Shrinking cast as a guest star in season 3,' the caption reads. 'Shrinking Season 2 — Now Streaming.' There are no details on what role Fox will play. In 'Shrinking,' Harrison Ford plays a therapist who, it's disclosed at the end of the first season, has Parkinson's disease, the same disease Fox revealed in 1998 he had. Fox recently partnered with Apple TV+ on the 2023 Emmy-winning documentary 'Still,' which chronicled his life and history with Parkinson's. 'Shrinking' will reunite Fox with co-creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence, who co-created the sitcom 'Spin City,' which Fox starred in before leaving the series and retiring from full-time acting in 2000 to instead focus on his foundation. Fox won his fourth Emmy Award for 'Spin City' after he won three for 'Family Ties.' Fox made many more appearances on the small screen over the years, even winning another Emmy for his guest role on the FX series 'Rescue Me' in 2009. He would earn another five Emmy nominations for his work on the CBS drama 'The Good Wife.' Fox also appeared on 'Designated Survivor,' 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and 'Boston Legal,' and he starred in his own short-lived series, 'The Michael J. Fox Show.' 'Shrinking' will be Fox's first on-screen TV acting role since he appeared on 'The Good Wife' spinoff, 'The Good Fight,' in 2020. That same year, Fox revealed he planned to retire from acting for a second time. 'The nascent diminishment in my ability to download words and repeat them verbatim is just the latest ripple in the pond,' he wrote in his memoir 'No Time Like the Future.' 'There are reasons for my lapses in memorization — be they age, cognitive issues with the disease, distraction from the constant sensations of Parkinson's, or lack of sensation because of the spine — but I read it as a message, an indicator,' he wrote. 'There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a twelve-hour workday, and memorizing seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me,' he continued. 'At least for now.' Fox also poked some fun at the challenges acting presented to him, although he didn't necessarily close the door on returning to his trade. 'In fairness to myself and to producers, directors, editors, and poor beleaguered script supervisors, not to mention actors who enjoy a little pace, I enter a second retirement,' he wrote. 'That could change, because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.'
