How treasured double act Victor and Barry were revived

Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson reunited to create their book Victor and Barry’s Kelvinside Compendium

It’s thanks to the British Museum that the cultural treasures that are Victor and Barry have been revived.

The discovery of a 30-year-old recording of a London performance prompted its creators - Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson - to write a book based on the characters that launched their careers.

They have returned to Edinburgh for the festivals, four decades after they first took the double act to the Fringe.

“They sent an email to say they’d found this recording,” says Alan Cumming, aka Barry McLeish.

"They made it sound like an archaeological object that that they’d just found and dusted off. "

The recording, uncovered two years ago, was from a 1991 performance at Pick of the Fringe at the Southbanks Centre's Purcell Room in London.

"It was then we realised we had a big anniversary coming up and maybe we should do something to mark it," Cumming tells BBC Scotland.

They decided to write a book - Victor and Barry’s Kelvinside Compendium - a collection of photos and memories of how the comedy duo met in 1982 as drama students at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.

Masson, who plays Victor MacIlvanney, was 19 when they first met and described as the "older sophisticated man” by Cumming, who was only 17.

Neither came from Glasgow but they liked the idea of creating two camp theatricals, founding members of Kelvinside Young Person’s Amateur Dramatic Society.

The inspiration for the accent came from Cumming’s landlady, the rest they improvised.

With their cravats and blazers and their witty songs, they tapped into a long history of Scottish music hall, as well as comedy legends like Chic Murray and Stanley Baxter.

They became regulars in Glasgow venues, particularly at the Tron Theatre, where they were victorious in the regular “gong nights” where audiences booed off the acts they didn’t like.

To their own surprise, they didn’t just survive, they thrived.

"Scotland in the early 80s was a very different place,” says Cumming.

"Almost a decade before Glasgow reinvented itself as city of culture, I think people liked that Victor and Barry - and Forbes and I - tapped into something.

"We were just two boys who gave it a go."

Victor and Barry thrived in Glasgow's live performance scene

Now established artists of stage and screen, Cumming and Masson have embarked on a short book tour that reunites their famous characters.

Four decades on from their first appearance at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Victor and Barry returned to Scotland's capital for its book festival’s biggest ever event on Saturday.

In 1984 their show got the duo's first bad review from Andrew Marr, then a little-known journalist at the Scotsman.

They responded in song, reworking the Dean Friedman number Lucky Star to: "We can thank you Andrew Marr, you’re not as smart as you like to think you are.”

Last week Dean Friedman posted on Instagram a link to a review of their new book, which mentions the incident, saying, "It made me laugh. Still waiting on the royalties, Messrs Cummings and Masson!”

Victor and Barry were later signed up for TV and radio programmes.

“We’ve been writing about what it felt like to be at the centre of that storm,” says Cumming.

"It was insane, overwhelming. We were so young and so green.”

But looking back, they also realise how pioneering the act was.

"With that youth comes a bit of chutzpah,” says Masson.

"When we went out, we were standing up for our own voices and saying we’ll do it the way we want to do it."

"When we were at drama school and started doing Victor and Barry, our Scottishness was seen as a negative thing,” says Cumming.

"We refused to buy into that and it became the very best thing about us.”

Victor and Barry were signed up for TV and radio programmes after successes on stage

In the 1990s, Masson and Cumming went in different directions after their sitcom The High Life.

Masson moved to London where he has been continuously in demand as an actor, most recently in The Crown and with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Cumming, from Aberfeldy in Perthshire, moved to the US where he won an Emmy for his role as the Emcee in Cabaret, and embarked on a film and TV career which has taken in everything from James Bond and X-Men movies, to the Good Wife and the US version of The Traitors.

Both have returned separately to the Edinburgh Festivals, and say they were regularly asked when their alter egos will return.

“Every other job I do, people come up and ask about Victor and Barry, which is lovely,” says Masson.

“I think it still stands the test of time.”

But Victor and Barry's reunion is likely to be a short-lived one.

They have already appeared in Glasow and have one more Scottish book festival date - at Wigtown on 6 October - and no plans for any more appearances.

Their creators are instead reviving another comedy duo, Sebastian and Steve, the camp flight attendants on Air Scotia in their 90s sitcom The High Life.

“They're basically Victor and Barry on a plane,” admits Masson.

The BBC plans to show the series again and make it available on iPlayer.

And Masson and Cumming are currently developing a stage musical with the National Theatre of Scotland.

So, welcome back Sebastian and Steve. Au revoir Victor and Barry.

“Never say, never,” says Alan.

“Although I don’t have enough hair for that wee kiss curl,” adds Forbes.

“And I’d definitely need a bigger dressing gown."