The Seductive charmer!
Cumming has come out the other side – and used
the tragedies as his strength.
His song
choices expressed the rich variety of his life, from showbiz nights with Liza
Minnelli to his drama school days in Glasgow. Some songs were from our most famous, inspired
divas, others were from artistic and less well known men!
He sang
Michael Marra’s song, Mother Glasgow, before which he explained Scottish words
to his diverse audience. He also sang a French and a German song
Interspersed
with his songs, were tales of his show biz life – of growing up in Aberfeldy,
of Glasgow and his rocky family life.
He spoke of
his maternal grandfather Tommy Darling, who had been a war hero, suffered
PTSD disorder and died tragically in the
Caribbean, where he had a street named after him. He told fondly of these
memories and said he felt he owed a great deal to his mother and to her father.
In 2015 he
wrote a moving autobiography entitled, Not My Father’s Son, and tonight the
pain of his bullying father was expressed with torn emotions in the Billy Joel
song, Dinner at Eight.
Cumming
spoke of how he began performing in Musselburgh. Thirty two years ago he played
Victor and Barry show at the Fringe when he was a drama student ;Of The Café
Royal NY and the Cabaret Show Broadway and of Studio 54 in1998.
He sang with
drama, passions, full on emotion and sincerity, even Scottish shyness at times,
with his neon sign CLUB CUMMING flashing behind him. Each song
told its own vivid story. Liza told him to think of ‘every song as a play', and to have both show business and authenticity' - no mean feat. When he performed 8 shows a week he started Club Cumming in his dressing room and that is where we were tonight at those after show parties.
So where was
the song for his mother? In the last song about all those special ladies and
also all through the set perhaps? He spoke and sang of the importance of how we
all connect – his tattoo says ONLY CONNECT, from the book Howards End. He sang
for all the broken souls.
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| Cumming at Edinburgh book festival |
