“If you are a cabaret artist and you are mostly singing other people’s songs, you’re asking them to rethink a song, listen to it in a different way. The most impact you can have while asking them to re-listen to a song is if it’s a song they know very well.”

I come more to Scotland than I ever used to, so I feel more connected to it, more part of the zeitgeist. You know when you realize you have a choice and I’m choosing my homeland. It’s funny: when you get older these things creep up to you.

It’s actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you’ll be okay.

So if I’m swirling around on some wires, talking to Fred Flintstone, I make it the funnest I can. I also want to be good at it. I don’t want to be a crap cartoon character. I want to be proud I’m a vitamin!

Working with good people is always good.

Kids are more genuine. When they come up and want to talk to you, they don’t have an agenda. It’s more endearing and less piercing to your aura.

I was so scared of going back to the theatre after Hamlet. I didn’t know if I’d do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it.

Finally, the scariest thing about abuse of any shape or form, is, in my opinion, not the abuse itself, but that if it continues it can begin to feel commonplace and eventually acceptable.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story’s going to end and how it’s going to go. But on television nobody knows what’s going to happen, even the writers.

I’m quite good, though I say it myself, at making strangers feel at ease.

I had to be a grown-up when I should have been a little boy, and now that I’m a grown-up my little-boyness has exploded out of me. I’ve lived my life backwards.

There are some days when you don’t feel like being Alan Cumming.

Macbeth was the first play I ever read.

My mum always told me I was precious, while my dad always told me I was worthless. I think that’s a good grounding for a balanced life.

Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.

Some things are just really difficult to do. That’s what I find hard. I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it’s a struggle sustaining that, because there’s such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.

I started to itch to do a play again and ‘Macbeth’ came to the surface in my mind. I never thought I would do it in a conventional way. A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn’t interest me.

I’ve actually found – especially doing my cabaret show – I’m connecting with people in a way I haven’t connected with them. I’ve found that when you’re open and honest, people respond to that, whatever you’re being open and honest about.