Stage and screen star Alan Cumming on how the aging process has inspired his latest cabaret show

In fact, it has been hard to keep up with his appearances on stage and screen.

The last few years alone have seen him portraying Scotland’s national bard, one of the country’s most notorious imposters and joining forces with the actress Miriam Margoyles for a Scottish travel show.

He has also found time to host the American version of the hit reality TV series The Traitors, star alongside Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange in a new Philip Marlowe thriller and film a remake of a Christmas movie he originally starred in more than 30 years ago.

But with the clock towards his 59th birthday at the end of January, it is no perhaps not surprising that Cumming has created an entire cabaret show celebrating the process of aging.

He has been touring the show around the world since its world premiere in Adelaide in the summer of 2021, shortly before Cumming brought it to Scotland to help the Edinburgh International Festival bounce back from its pandemic shutdown the previous summer.

Described as a “joyful and mischievous” exploration of aging, Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age will be back in Scotland at the end of January for a one-off performance at Glasgow’s Armadillo.

Although Cumming says the show is him “blabbing on about getting older,” it was inspired by his own experiences of being scrutinised on stage, when he appeared in Daddy, a New York play exploring the impact of a relationship between a young black artist and an older white art collector.

Cumming recalled: “I had to be naked for quite large swathes of the time in the play. It was really quite interesting what people wrote and said about a man in his fifties being naked on stage.

“It got me thinking about that whole thing about what is expected of you when you get older and the sort of mixed messages you get.

“I thought about how, as we get older, we are not supposed to do certain things. A lot of my friends tell me ‘I am too old for now, I can’t come out, I can't keep up with you, I can’t do that.’

‘I just sort of thought: ‘Who is is that decides what you should or shouldn’t do?’

"There is also that thing where we’re told that getting older means you should be less curious and less open to things. I actually think that is a mistake. It was all really fascinating to me.”

Cumming last toured in Scotland in 2022 when he depicted the poet Robert Burns in the National Theatre of Scotland dance-theatre production Burn.

He said: “When I did Burn I definitely felt my body telling me things. Just waking up and walking to the loo, everything ached. If you talk to any dancer they will tell you that is the case.

“But the big thing I realised was the recovery period I needed after Burn. I was waking up sore for months afterwards. I actually thought: “Is this it? Am I just going to be one of those sore and achy people now?’

"I probably go to bed a little bit earlier than I used to, but it’s all relative. I definitely feel like I’ve got more energy than most people. I’m definitely doing as much as ever.”

Cumming’s profile as a TV presenter is set to raise even further in 2024, thanks to a new series of the American version of The Traitors, Paradise Homes, which will see him travel across the UK and Europe to seek some of “the world’s most imaginative dwellings," and a travel show following the iconic Royal Scotsman as it travels through some of Scotland’s most iconic landscapes.

He said: "It’s been really interesting since Covid. All of us had a big reboot in many areas when we were forced to not do what we normally do. I just loved it.

"I didn’t miss performing at all because no-one else was doing it. I loved pottering about. The big difference is that I take time off now. I took July and December off. I feel more justified in cramming everything into other times.”

Cumming will be ending his current tour of the show, which visits Glasgow on 20 January, at Studio 24 in New York in the spring.

But, when we speak, he is about to head to Yaddo, an artists and writers retreat in Saratoga Springs, to develop a new show, which he hinted will be a mix in style between his recent solo stage work for the National Theatre of Scotland and his cabaret shows.

Cumming said: “I want to try to do something a bit different with the next one.

"One of the things with doing shows like this is that you don’t really do any rehearsals – they don’t have a normal structure. That’s why they’re terrifying.

"You just have to make them up, practice yourself, work with a musical director to choose the songs and do the arrangements. You get the band, do a rehearsal and then boom, you’re on.’ You sort of refine the show and edit as you’re going along.’

"I thought it would be nice to do something with a little more preparation, but it will be cabaret, as I’ll be telling stories and singing songs. It’s called ‘Uncut.’ I’m going to be uncensored, very open and vulnerable.

"I want to make it about certain things in my life that have had a long reach in how I am today and the songs that are connected to them.

"I like doing songs that people know but let them hear them in a way that they haven't heard before. There are so many good songs that are just so over-produced that you don’t hear the words or really what they're about. I’m choosing quite a few well-known pop songs.”