Alan Cumming Sang 'Sappy Songs' at the Hub

The Seductive charmer!

Cumming has come out the other side – and used the tragedies as his strength.

 The Edinburgh Hub venue was set for a Late night Cabaret show with soft lights and drinks tables encircling the stage. The consummate performer, his first dramatic song Somewhere Only We know and Annie Lennox’s Why, set the tone for an evening of high drama with strong passions and a voice of character, sincerity and depth. His story ranged from deep tragedy to comedy relief, good humour and the fun of being on stage.

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 Miley Cyrus song The Climb, Adele’s Someone Like You, Goodnight Saigon, Mother Glasgow and other musical numbers. Also Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know, Lady Gaga’s Edge of Glory, Kate Perry’s Firework. He said they were actually all one song!  He was well accompanied by a 3-piece band, with cello, piano and drums.

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. 

Cumming at Edinburgh book festival

Edinburgh Book festival 2016

Every year when I enter the white tents that encamp on the historic gardens of Edinburgh’s Charlotte’s Square beside the ever changing light on the Georgian town houses, and the Bute house, home to Scotland’s First Minister – I feel that anticipation of new ideas, poetry, music, comedy and more.  The stories we will hear, famous faces, new books. All the characters – Philosophers, individual free thinkers, dreamers, creative, artists, academics, The EIBF is a celebration of the written word and of creativity.

The Edinburgh Book festival offers a community of writers and readers  - a place to reflect and take time out from our frantic paced world. Around the Statue of Prince Albert people throng in the grassy centre – children play and others read and relax. There’s the gentle sound of walkers on the wooden walkways and the hum of anticipation voices.

Scotland has always been an outward looking, inclusive, open to new ideas, country. 

Thanks to all at the team – the hard work, the effort, the time put in,

I look forward each August to the place for contemplations, introspection, literary collaborations, thought-provoking conversation, famous faces, - the imaginative landscape that represent creative liberty and literature at the book festival.

Melvyn Bragg talked of  - that it is not language but our being able to ‘Imagine that makes us better'  – mostly IMAGINE BETTER.....

Alan Cumming

Jonathan Dimbleby

Joanne Harris

Paul Mason

DEBATES

Closing the Attainment gap. Sue Palmer's book, Upstart Scotland, which promotes Primary school starting at 6 and Kindergarten for 4 and 5 year olds. 
My thoughts on Closing Attainment Gap - http://yesforscotland.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/closing-attainment-gap.

UK Politics: Politics on the outer edges is thriving. Those echo chambers online. And good journalism. Will the politicians or the people win/ politicians have lost touch with the people.

*MUSIC at EIBF,

Wilco Johnstone, Billy Bragg, Roddie Woomble,

On the Saturday Unbound evening - Roddie Woomble and friends – which included Andrew Mitchell dynamic on bass, Siobhan Wilson’s beautiful voice and on cello, and also keyboards. I wish I had recorded this event, what an enjoyable, top class band! Well done to all. 

**BOOKS & TALKS –

Melvyn Bragg – Now's The Time

Alan Taylor - Glasgow, an Autobiography

Paul Mason – Post Capitalism

Ruby Wax – Mindfulness Guide For the Frazzled

Erica Jong – Fear of Dying

Laura Cumming - The Vanishing Man

Writers appearing at the 2016 Festival included:

Han Kang, Hisham Matar, Mervyn King, Malcolm Rifkind, Val McDermid, Eimear McBride, Chris Packham, Liz Lochhead, Kim Leine, Chimwemwe Undi, Sjón, A L Kennedy, Howard Jacobson, Gordon Brown, Alan Cumming, Can Xue, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Simon Callow, Shappi Khorsandi, Nina Stibbe, Wolfgang Bauer, Frank Gardner, Stuart MacBride, Irvine Welsh, Laura Bates, Janet Ellis, Lionel Shriver, Sarah Ardizzone, Gregor Fisher, Philippe Sands, Gillian Slovo, Kenny MacAskill, Sumayya Usmani, Sue Perkins, Tom Devine, Jessie Burton, Jem Lester, Kit de Waal, Arkady Ostrovsky, Ian Rankin, John Boyne, Ali Smith and many more…

The Book Festival is truly international with over 800 participants from 55 different countries coming together to share their books, ideas and stories.

EDINBURGH festival 2016

As the tents start to some down in George street and the fireworks light up the skies over the castle to the strains of West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet… and another EF, the worlds biggest arts festival, inevitably draws to a close. There may be sadness, but while we know the show must go on, we also accept – perhaps not at this hectic level!

At CLUB CUMIING at The Hub, actor and musical star Alan Cumming – showed us clearly  why he became a number one star on Broadway. At Mozart’s romantic comedy opera Cosi Fan Tutte direct from festival d’Aix-en-Provence.at the festival theatre, there was also much to celebrate. At the Book festival, many famous authors and poets visited to give illuminating talks on their books.

Each EF I always visit some specific haunts – it replenishes my creativity and artistic heart – I hope anyway. To recharge, maybe open new windows, even renewals, to connect too.

  

*MUSIC at EF 2016

The Official festival has broadened it’s appeal under new Irish director Fergus Linehan with an expanded and diverse music program -

Emma Pollock with RM Hubbert, Bdy-Prts, Cairn Strap quartet,

Sigar Ros, Mogwai, Young Fathers

GRIT - 5 star reviews.  “masterpiece of arrangement” with “Fiona Hunters earthiness contrasting to ethereal voices of the Glasgow Chapel choir.”  I was lucky enough to hear this wonderful concert at the opening of Celtic Connections 2015.

Emma Pollock

Rodddie Woomble and Friends

On the Saturday Unbound evening - Roddie Woomble and friends – which included Andrew Mitchell dynamic on bass, Siobhan Wilson’s beautiful voice and on cello, and also kayboards

I wish I had recorded this event, what an enjoyable, top class band! Well done to all. 

EF is a celebration of where the different cultures meet – the more bazaar the better! Soul sustenance’

Follow them all, know them all, be able to hear, be able to know….

Explore those highways new or forgotten. The footsteps of Edinburgh festival – the sounds of George street, firework bangs, crowd cheers and claps, the laughter and song.

**is there A NEW Scottish Writers Museum

The saunter through the energy of the Fringe performers on the High Street – and I walk along George St and up the Mound and on down the high street. I eat at  Bilbos on the corner of Chambers St.

I stopped in at the very small Scottish writers museum up a small winding stair in a hidden close at the top of the High street. There are exhibits to Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Walter Scott. Apart from a few Burns paintings and a display of his Kilmarnock first Edition of his Poems - there is not a lot here.

I asked the lady there about a possible new museum. I said I have visited the Irish Writers museum which is housed in an impressive Georgian mansion and is 50 times bigger

There was talk of putting a decent size Scottish Writers museum beside the National library.

There are no modern authors or women writers or any of Scotland’s great philosophers of the enlightenment; Where is Robert Fergusson who wrote of Edinburgh and inspired Burns to write in Scots? Where is Arthur Conan Doyle, Hugh MacDiarmid, James MacPherson or JM Barrie?

At an Irish concert at Celtic Connections I mentioned to an Irish lady beside me about the interesting Irish Writers Museum – she said perhaps there weren’t enough good Scottish writers!  I hope one day she might be proved wrong and we might have as Scottish Writers Museum that truly reflects not only this great city of Literature but also the MANY great Scottish writers and artists.