Alan Cumming, actor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alan Cumming's wide-ranging career on stage includes playing Hamlet, starring opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and – perhaps most notably - taking the role of the Emcee in the musical Cabaret in London and New York to great acclaim: his 1998 Broadway performance won seven awards, including a Tony. He’s also appeared in films including GoldenEye and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and in the TV series The Good Wife. Alan was born in Perthshire in 1965. His father was a forester and the family moved to the Panmure estate on the east coast of Scotland. Encouraged by his English teacher, Alan grew up loving drama at school but his childhood was blighted by his violent and abusive father. He worked for the publisher DC Thomson as a sub-editor before going to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. There he launched his performing career with fellow student Forbes Masson: together they were Victor and Barry, a comedy and music double-act. They drew on these characters for their BBC TV sit-com The High Life, based around a fictional Scottish airline. Alan has published a novel and three memoirs: his 2014 autobiography Not My Father’s Son detailed his very difficult relationship with his father, both in his early years and later in his life. In 2022 Alan is developing a solo dance-theatre work, focusing on the personal history of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, which he will perform in Scotland and New York. He’s now also the co-owner of a bar, Club Cumming, in Manhattan. DISC ONE: Dignity by Deacon Blue DISC TWO: L’Amour Looks Something Like You by Kate Bush DISC THREE: Barcelona by Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé DISC FOUR: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers DISC FIVE: Whenever Wherever Whatever by Maxwell DISC SIX: Give Me Back My Heart by Dollar DISC SEVEN: Catalani: La Wally : Ebben? ne andrò lontana Act 1 by Maria Callas and Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Tullio Serafin DISC EIGHT: These Are My Mountains by Peter Morrison BOOK CHOICE: Desert Gardening for Beginners: How to grow vegetables, flowers, and herbs in an Arid Climate by Cathy Cromell, Linda A. Guy, Lucy K. Bradley LUXURY ITEM: Marijuana seeds CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Give Me Back My Heart by Dollar Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.9	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.
0:08.6	Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take
0:13.3	with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:16.4	And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:21.2	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:43.3	My cast away this week is the actor Alan Cumming.
0:46.4	He's an unusual kind of actor, born who's never been out of work.
0:50.6	Not for him, the long stints of bar work while waiting for a role.
0:53.8	Well, he does do a bit of bartending, but he actually co-owns the venue,
0:58.1	the irresistibly named club coming in Manhattan.
1:01.3	Comedy, tragedy, song, dance and drama.
1:04.8	He's done it all.
1:05.9	He's appeared in films as diverse as Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shot,
1:10.0	Golden Eye and Spice World, and in the TV series The Good Wife.
1:14.0	He's written a novel and three memoirs made several documentaries and numerous albums.
1:18.8	He's won Emmys, Comedy Awards and many accolades from his native Scotland,
1:23.4	as well as his Olivier's and a Tony for his turn as the MC in the musical Cabaret.
1:28.6	A role he's reprised in an extraordinary four decades of his life.
1:33.3	These sit beside honors for his work as a gay right activist and as a humanitarian.
1:38.6	This followed the publication of an autobiography which detailed the horrifying physical
1:43.5	and emotional abuse inflicted on him throughout his childhood by his father.
	...

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