Alan Cumming: 'The High Life was always about Scotland’s place and the notion of independence'
The quiffs, that hair lacquer, that formation dancing, those deliciously couthy asides - The High Life is back
by: Paul English
17 Apr 2026
Forbes Masson as Steve McCracken and Alan Cumming as Sebastian Flight. Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan; Alastair More
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When the cast of Air Scotia last dropped their landing gear on the runway of cult BBC comedy, things were very different.
“That period in the 1990s really was the start of something in Scotland. Five years later we voted for devolution,” says Alan Cumming, surveying the landscape of then and now in rehearsal room at Dundee Rep theatre, after breaking from a 31-year holding pattern since the final episode of his much loved airline comedy The High Life.
“Even though it’s a laugh, it’s funny, The High Life was also always about Scotland’s place and the notion of independence.”
The High Life? Created by and starring Cumming and then comedy sidekick Forbes Masson alongside Siobhan Redmond and Patrick Ryecart? Six episodes following musical misadventures, dramatic eyerolls and synched polyester at 32,000 feet?
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Those quiffs, that hair lacquer, that formation dancing, those deliciously couthy asides? It was political?!
Those of us who knew, loved and quoted all that trolly dolly jetplane japery (“You f’coffee?”) at a time of Tory rule and the grey days of John Major mostly loved it precisely because it was a diversion from all that, in the non-aviation sense.
But now that Air Scotia has come in to land, retrofitted as a stage musical, it turns out there are some items on the baggage carousel we maybe hadn’t realised were ours.
“Scotland was about always being taken over, colonised by some English oppressor,” says Cumming. “This version is riddled with political references to where we are as a country now.”
Cumming recalls a feature on Scottish Television (STV) about his and Masson’s beloved Victor and Barry double-act, which was based on their lampooning the ’80s trendies of Glasgow’s West End, discussing whether or not their accents would be understood in London.
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“That’s what we come from,” says Cumming. “But we have realised through our careers that we do travel, we are good enough and we are understood. But also, it’s just fun to do something for people who get absolutely everything that you’re saying.”
Those people, for now at least, are theatregoers in Scotland who have (window, middle or aisle) seats for the reimagined show’s tour.
When Big Issue visits rehearsals in Dundee, the room is lit with big numbers and belly laughs. Nobody has a problem understanding what’s being said here, in a script co-written by playwright, actor and director Johnny McKnight. Redmond, as Shona Spurtle, is joined among others by Louise McCarthy, fast becoming one of the country’s leading comic telly turns.
“There was a time when we thought we were going to be touring this wider and we came to a realisation that we just wanted to do it in Scotland,” says Masson.
“We felt we would have to Anglicise it and we didn’t want to do that. Even though it was shown across the UK, The High Life is a Scottish thing, so let people come to Scotland to see it.
“There are so many great things about being Scottish, but one of the things we aren’t so very good at is being confident about ourselves. I don’t think we need to change ourselves. It’s so lovely to do something where every single reference is known by people in Scotland.”
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Cast photo with director Andrew Panton on the far right. Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan; Alastair More
Cumming’s career went stratospheric after the first – and only – series. He moved to New York, landed a Bond baddie role opposite Pierce Brosnan [in 1995’s GoldenEye] and a memorable slot with Tom Cruise in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut among a plethora of high-profile roles. These days, when not running Pitlochry Festival Theatre, he’s presenter and producer of The US Traitors and is, most likely, turning left on embarking. If acting was airplanes, Cumming became an Airbus A830.
He and Masson met in the early ’80s in drama college in Glasgow, and by the time The High Life had made it to the BBC Two network, they’d been in each other’s pockets for more than a decade.
“There were tricky times,” admits Masson. “It’s like anything, when you’re together a lot it can become like a bad marriage.”
Not beyond repair, though. Cumming compares the pair’s relationship to siblings, held together by a very stretchy elastic. When they came back together in 2024 to write a Victor and Barry book, they were reassured to find the spark remained.
“It was a real laugh, like the years hadn’t happened,” says Masson. “The National Theatre of Scotland had been on at us for years to do something with The High Life, but it took for Johnny McKnight to come up to us. He was the catalyst.”
Masson adds: “It’s about getting older, I think. And valuing what we had together. We wanted to make sure we had a laugh, and to make sure everyone who came to see it has a laugh because, by Christ, we all really need it at the moment.”
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So what to expect of the inbound journey?
“Well, we’re all in our 60s, still working for Air Scotia, and we’re all worried that their airline is going to be sold,” says Cumming. “And some very bad things have been happening in the Lower Largo Triangle.”
