Forbes Masson: stage version of The High Life will be 'much filthier' than the TV series

Perhaps it was the cheery clash of glamour and banality in the show’s setting, which involved a clapped-out Scottish airline called Air Scotia, operating out of Prestwick Airport; perhaps it was the beguiling titles of the episodes, which rejoiced in single-word names like “Feart”, “Birl”, “Winch” and “Choob”.

Or maybe - as ever with Cumming and Masson - it was just the irresistible comic chemistry between the two main characters, a pair of male flight attendants called Sebastian Flight (a shameless Brideshead reference) and Steve McCracken. The two were already well-known as irresistible comedy-cabaret duo Victor and Barry, two Kelvinside men who loved to send up the mores and aspirations of 1980s Glasgow; and when a BBC editor rejected the idea of a Victor and Barry television series, and asked them if they had "anything else” on the go, the irrepressible pair simply invented The High Life overnight.

And now, remarkably - half a lifetime on - Air Scotia is about to take off again, in a new stage musical co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep; and featuring not only co-authors Masson and Cumming in their original roles, but also their old sparring-partners Siobhan Redmond as chief stewardess Shona and Patrick Ryecart as Captain Hilary Duff. The 2020s update of the High Life is co-scripted by Scotland’s 21st century comedy and panto king, Johnny McKnight; and it features around 18 songs written by Masson with input from both Cumming and McKnight, in a show directed by Andrew Panton of Dundee Rep.

“Johnny is really like the child Victor and Barry never had,” says Masson, in a break from rehearsals. “He’s from a younger generation, but he’s on exactly the same wavelength; and although we had been talking about this for years, it was really thanks to Johnny that it all finally came together. And Alan and I are just delighted that with the NTS, we’ve been able to do it purely as a tour around Scotland’s big stages; so that we don’t have to water anything down for audiences outside Scotland.”

Watering things down is certainly not Cumming and Masson’s style. The High Life series was famously surreal, featuring wild music and dance sequences and hilariously improbable situations; and Masson cheerfully assures me that the stage show will be “much filthier” than the television series ever was, although it was pretty bold, by more politically correct 2020s standards.

“Well, I think Johnny’s done a brilliant job on the book in that respect,” says Masson. “I mean, we were a bit unpleasantly sexist and misogynistic in our portrayal of Shona, for example; and we try to redress that balance in the show. But we’re still pretty outrageous, and completely surreal; although the odd thing is that whenever The High Life appears, actual flight attendants keep coming up to us and saying, ‘oh, it’s so like real life!’”

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“Did I see it?” says director Andrew Panton, when asked about The High Life’s impact on him as a young gay man growing up in 1990s Scotland. “I was actually in it! I was training in London at the time, and I was one of the dancers in a scene filmed at Prestwick Airport.

“So yes, I’ve been aware of it and loved it all these years, and now to be working on it with the original team, and a terrific young cast as well, is just a completely joy. Forbes and Alan, and Johnny too, are just so plugged into all the rich streams of comedy and satire and vaudeville in Scotland’s theatre tradition, as well as being very powerful writers and performers at every level; and frankly, it’s just been a riot in the rehearsal room - purposeful and hard working, but so much fun. “

“I should say,” adds Masson, whose highly successful London-based acting career since the 1990s has included a long period at the Royal Shakespeare Company with its late artistic director Michael Boyd, formerly of the Tron, “that this show is absolutely not about us pretending that we’re still in our late 20s. We’re 60 year old men, who have experienced and lived through so much since the 1990s; and there’s a lot in this play about ageing, and about feeling that you’re about to be sidelined.

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“One thing I love about it is that it involves a real element of intergenerational dialogue, with a brilliant young cast of actors and musicians; and all of that just reminds me of the importance of really strong ensemble work, in Scottish theatre and all theatre. I still often hear Michael Boyd talking to me in my head, although he’s gone; and I feel he’s urging me to do something in Scottish theatre, to help generate the kind of buzz that existed for a while around the Tron, in the early 90s.

“Alan’s doing that at Pitlochry, now that he’s artistic director there, and it’s terrific. So as someone who grew up in the Falkirk and Cumbernauld area, I’m working on the Cumbernauld Theatre panto for Christmas 2026, after the theatre narrowly avoided being closed down this winter; I’m also playing Gloucester to Maureen Beattie’s Lear at Pitlochry this summer. And then we’ll see how things go; but it’s certainly great to be back in Scotland more often, and working with Alan again - even if it has taken us 30 years to get it all together, at last.”

The High Life is at Dundee Rep from 27 March until 4 April and from 6-9 May; the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 7-11 April; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 14-18 April; Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 29 April until 2 May; and the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 12-23 May.

For full details of the National Theatre of Scotland’s 20th anniversary season, visit www.nationaltheatrescotland.com.

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