{"id":422216,"date":"2026-01-19T00:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T00:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422216\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T00:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T00:27:09","slug":"cumming-hails-extraordinary-first-out-in-the-hills-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422216\/","title":{"rendered":"Cumming hails &#8216;extraordinary&#8217; first Out in the Hills festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Actor and director Alan Cumming has praised the &#8220;extraordinary&#8221; atmosphere of the first Out In The Hills Festival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The three-day event, which featured guests including actor Sir Ian McKellen, crime writer Val McDermid, screenwriter Russell T Davies and broadcaster Graham Norton, included a programme of theatre, music, film and dancing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Organisers Pitlochry Festival Theatre said the festival &#8220;celebrated all things LGBTQIA+&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Performances included Sir Ian in Equinox, a rehearsed reading of the one-man play by Laurie Slade, and Cumming interviewing Graham Norton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Cumming, who hosts The Traitors US, became <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cvg4gxxkk0do\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">artistic director of the theatre<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He said the event &#8220;exemplified everything he could hope for as an artist and a Scot&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The actor, who received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame earlier this month, added: &#8220;The atmosphere in the building has been extraordinary &#8211; the love, inclusion, respect and joy have been unsurpassed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;The festival&#8217;s success, not only in ticket sales but, more importantly, in how it has made people feel supported and seen, underlines the importance of our work at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and signals a hopeful way forward for Scotland.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actor and director Alan Cumming has praised the &#8220;extraordinary&#8221; atmosphere of the first Out In The Hills Festival.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-422216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}