Alan Cumming. Literally. on SameSame.com.au

Alan Cumming is cumming. “I’m standing naked, masturbating,” Alan tells me over the phone when I ask where in the world he is, “where are you?” I tell him I’m standing in our interview booth and, unfortunately, I’m not masturbating. I clarify the question. “Oh, I see what you mean. I’m in New York,” says the Scottish-born performer.

Alan is also ‘cumming’ to Australia. Performing his popular show, I Bought A Blue Car Today, “but a slightly different version.” Alan explains that it will be the same show he performed during Mardi Gras in February, but “this time it’s only going to be me and a piano and a cello. Some of the songs have changed and stuff. It’s always kind of evolving,” says the cheeky interviewee.

Unfortunately, I can’t take the credit for the pun. Alan uses it himself, regularly. Most notably, and to good effect, for his fragrance and body care range – Cumming, a range that includes such sensuous items as: Cumming All Over, Cumming In A Bar, and Cumming Clean. Which will all leave you, ‘of course, smelling lightly of Cumming,’ according to the product website.

“I’m not retiring on it or anything like that, we didn’t intend it to be like that. Most of the sales are online and we give massive amounts to charitable things, but it’s won awards and things. We vied with, uh… diddy?” says Alan, searching for the singer’s newest appellation, “...P Diddy for the best celebrity fragrance of the year!” When I don’t respond so enthusiastically, more because my thoughts are with my next question, Alan laughs and says “I know.”

Despite his celebrity status, critics find the range no laughing matter. When I bring up the overwhelmingly complimentary critic comments the range advertises on its website, from the likes of The New York Times and Playgirl, he tells me “No, they’re all real! They’re all absolutely real.” And the secret ingredient? “It’s got a leathery smell to it. There’s leather and rubber and peat and stuff like that. It’s got a very earthy base. I kind of scrape samples off chaps, out in bars.” Lovely, indeed.

Much has been made of Liza’s first ever performance at the Sydney Opera House this year, but for Alan, this will be his fourth performance under the white sails. “I’m certainly not better than Liza,” he laughs. “When I did my show in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, I actually went to see Liza. Lance, my musical director, his boyfriend, Tiger, is one of the dancers with Liza and also, I know her and stuff. So as soon as my show came down, we rushed to the airport and flew to Las Vegas for the midnight show of Liza’s last performance. They were filming it for television. So hilarious, dashing to Las Vegas to see Liza at midnight.”

Not just familiar with our performance halls, but the city itself, Alan will be hanging with somewhat of a local gay celebrity when he’s here. “They’re such sweethearts!” says Alan of Sydney’s DJ Sveta and her partner Siri May. Asked whether he has been to Sveta’s regular Wednesday night gig at Enmore’s small, sweaty and intimate Sly Fox Hotel, Alan says it may have escaped his memory. “I’ve been… like, before this last time in Sydney, I was there about five years ago making a movie. And so I was there for four months. I went to a lot of bars,” laughs the known martini lover.

Maybe it was in bars that Alan picked up his mean Australian accent. “My mouth’s as dry as a dead dingos donger!” Alan repeats after I said I heard him say that once. “I forgot about that, how funny. I love that saying! I tell a story in my show about my other favourite Australian saying – ‘Shouldn’t be a drama’” says Alan, with perfect lax vowels and all. “It was said to me by this laconic lady in an optician’s in Melbourne. I think it’s hilarious. And I think it’s perfect. It shouldn’t be a drama. I think it’s something we should all take to heart.”

While the 44-year-old Scots-man is quite courteous throughout our chat, asking if I have any piercings when I ask about his own body art, “I had both my nipples pierced in about 2000. And then I took one out for a film. What was that for… but I didn’t put it back in. Oh, I know, I took it out when I did Bent in London. I thought that a man in a concentration camp wouldn’t have a pierced nipple. I’ll get it re-pierced. But I haven’t done it yet. Maybe I will,” says Alan. He also asked where I’d travelled to before, “Jakarta? Where’s that?” But he did tell me to shut up -twice. Once when I postulated Britney might be touring Australia at the same time as him and then again, a little louder and more intensely, when I said I thought Mika would be in town too.

“Shut up! Oh, [meeting up with Mika] would be fun. I must look on his website and give him a ring. That would be great. He’s a really nice boy.” Alan explains that there was quite the media frenzy when he and Mika first met, maybe even shared a lollipop, under the ever watchful gaze of British paparazzi. “I do one of his songs [in my show] and I tell a story about the night I met him, and the ensuing rumour mill that happened when we were spotted out on the town together. Yeah, he’s a lovely boy. He came to see my show in London. And of course, he didn’t know that the story was going to be in it. So he was kind of squirming in his seat. Very sweet.”

When I ask how married life is treating him, Mr Cumming goes a little quiet and the courteous man returns. “Good, Thank you. It’s, um… It’s lovely. It’s sort of… I like it. I like being married. It’s nice. It’s nice to have claimed my rights. You know, I think I really love being… in a relationship that way,” says Alan, with endearing thoughtful pauses. Alan explains that his marriage is recognised in his adopted home of New York, but that ceremonies can’t be performed there – “I’m not sure what that means, maybe we’ll get a tax kick back, or something.”

I tell Alan that ceremonies can’t be performed here yet either. “Oh, really?!” Despite his surprise, Alan remains optimistic, “never say die!” While he says he won’t be able to make the national marriage equality rally in late November, he says maybe the ‘gay mafia’ can help out. “Maybe me Liza and Mika can form a splinter political party?”

At least the country would smell sensuous and leathery, right? Can’t you just see the campaign slogans now – Cumming in 2010.

Alan Cumming – I Bought A Blue Car Today – plays at the Sydney Opera House from November 10-14, and at the Brisbane Powerhouse, November 15.