BWW INTERVIEWS: Star Of Stage And Screen Alan Cumming

Hello, Alan, welcome back to the West End and welcome to BWW:UK. First of all - and you're probably bored of saying it - tell us about your show.

It's old-fashioned in a way. It's me and a band, singing some songs that I like, in front of an audience. I came up with an umbrella title, I Bought A Blue Car Today, which is a sentence I wrote down in my citizenship test to become an American, to prove my prowess in English. I just thought as the show is kind of about the ten years I've lived there, and the things that have happened to me there, like a fish out of water, I guess, I thought that would be good.

When I talked to Janie Dee, she said that cabaret isn't something we really do very much here...

Mm, I know! We do it a bit more in New York. I was talking to someone yesterday, and we were saying that in the Fifties more actors, movie stars, would suddenly just have a show. I wish that would happen more, I think that would be quite interesting - learn a bit about them and see them in a different way. Can you imagine Cameron Diaz? I Bought A Red Car Today, she could do.

Why do you think it doesn't really happen now?

I don't know. I think in America the division between movie actors and theatre actors has grown. Most of the famous actors in showbiz have no stage experience of any kind, and they're less desirous to do it. I talked to Brad Pitt, and he said he'd love to do a play, but the pressure on him now after so long would be enormous. There's no way he could go on and do it in a small way, and that makes it really scary. I can understand that. It's a bit like suddenly doing your own one-man show in the West End...

It's a nice way to come back, though...

Yeah - but it's scary!

How did you go about putting it together?

I kind of got the songs together first, and then the stories...basically the stories are all about things that have happened to me, and I think, "What shall I talk about here?" It's all about my experiences, which makes me nervous! It's crazy; you think start small - Sydney Opera House, West End...

Was it always the plan to do it on such a big scale?

No. It wasn't always the plan to do it at all, period! It's just one of those things that happened. On my first night doing the show in New York, my manager, whose idea it had been, came up to me and said, "Are you OK?" and I said, "I would like to punch you in the face!" Isn't that a terrible thing to say?! I mean, she got it, and we laughed, but I thought what am I doing this for? I'm glad I've done it - the connection you get with the audience is really great, and it's exhilarating to sing with a band, so it is worth it. I just think it's quite interesting to let people find out more about you in a different way - it's a bit more personal.

And you're doing Notes Unleashed as well.

Yes, Lance's thing [Lance Horne]! I'm doing that because I don't have enough going on in my life... Lance is great. He's my musical director, so he plays the piano for me. I sing one of his songs in my show, about a boyfriend that we both have had, which is kind of amusing. He asked me to sing in a show he was doing in LA, and I said, well, play me your songs and I'll choose one. And he played this one, and I was like, oh, it's beautiful, Lance, I've got to have this one. And he said, oh, it's about someone we both know. I explain in the show about it, and what's great is that everyone always gasps, and they're like, "Oh, my God!" They think a, how funny, and b, I can't believe he's telling us that! And then I start the song, and it's really intense, and that's what I love about it, it changes to a different mood, and so do the audience. And we've written a song together, which I'll be singing, called Next To Me. It's about my relationship with my husband. We're also going to do a bit from a condom commercial I recently did with Ricki Lake, in the style of a Sixties musical, and I think Lance is going to be taking Ricki Lake's role! You can see the original commercial on my website.

I was looking through your website, and I saw that you had a documentary made about your naturalisation - you had cameras following you around.

Yeah! When I did the test, the man giving me the test was more nervous than I was because he had a camera in his face and I'm used to that! Then when it was the swearing-in thing, I got to be at the front, and I got to bring ten people with me, and normally you can only bring two, so I got special treatment. One thing was so awful, I did my test, and they said I could come the very next day for the fancy-dress Hallowe'en swearing-in ceremony. So I could have gone as a Puritan or something! You can become an American in fancy dress! And I couldn't go! I was going on holiday to Mexico the next day. They're big on Hallowe'en there. They really love it. People plan it for months. Hallowe'en in New York is the most amazing night.

I'm hoping I'll be out there in October this year! I was there last in May.

Oh, what did you see? 9 to 5? I loved that, I saw it with my mum - it's quite a mum show. I loved when Allison Janney did that big number. Isn't she great? I love her, she's a real laugh, that one. I don't really have any desire to see Shrek, but that guy on his knees the whole way through, doing an entire show like that [Christopher Sieber, playing Lord Farquaard]...He's a big guy, as well.

What have you seen in New York recently?

I saw Exit The King with Geoffrey Rush. That was great. And Susan Sarandon. I liked that very much.

And you're attached to the Spider-Man musical, so you should be going into that next year...

Well, fingers crossed. It's on hold. So, yeah. They're pausing it. I'm supposed to go back and shoot for three days for the projections in the show, so I suspect that will be postponed, because production's actually stopped. They've done my costume, which was amazing. But they've spent so much money already it seems insane that they might not do it. I think something happened with the cashflow, but it was a massive budget to start with. I'll be sad if it doesn't happen, because I really like it, but I got to go into a studio with Bono and The Edge, and that was exciting. But I really want to be at home [in New York]. The idea came along, and I was like, "Spider-Man? The musical? What?" And then I read it, and I heard it, and I met them. I would have been committed for a year, and I'm so into that.

Is there any other part you fancy at the moment?

Not really. I saw Jonny Lee Miller playing Jean in After Miss Julie. I've actually always wanted to do Miss Julie, but I never really lust after parts. I've always said "King Lear", because that's in my future and I don't have to discuss it! I create a lot of my own work, but in other ways I just want to be surprised.

I was going to say, do you fancy writing your own musical at some point?

I really enjoy writing with Lance, and so I don't know. It would have to be the right story, and he's got some interesting ideas, actually. I like the way that music can tell a story and the way that people can connect through song. But some modern musicals put the "tack" in "spectacular" - that's a good line. I don't want to go down that route.

So you're here for eight shows -

Eight shows only!

- and then you're off on holiday?

Yes. Off to the Highlands of Scotland. And then my record comes out, on September 22, so I've got to do stuff for that. Then I do the show in Orange County, California, and a week in Los Angeles. Then after that I do a gig in New York, and in November Lance and I will do some gigs in Australia, an unplugged version of the show - just me, him and a cellist. I think that'll be nice. In America they're doing a documentary about the show, and we want to do that here but it's hard to organise. Perhaps after I've done it here, I could always do it again... Actually, talking of filming, one of the nights in LA, we're going to finish the show, rush out the door to LAX, fly to Vegas, go to the MGM Grand and watch Liza [Liza Minnelli] filming her show. I interviewed her for a documentary I did, The Real Cabaret, about Berlin and Christopher Isherwood and everything.

What's she like?

She's great, a sweetheart. Actually, it was funny, in the research pack they gave me, there were pictures of her with Christopher Isherwood, round about the time the film was released. So I asked her about him. And she went, "I never met him." And I was thinking, "Oh. Really? I saw a photo of you hugging him."

Alan Cumming: I Bought A Blue Car Today is at the Vaudeville Theatre from September 1 to September 6 (8pm performances, with 4pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday).

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