‘Rock star’ is the buzzword attached to this production; a chance to reframe Scotland’s National Bard in new terms. At first glance, you might think it implies some kind of hagiography: how different is idolising Burns as a ‘rock star’ nowadays to plonking his face on a biscuit tin a hundred years ago? 

But it soon becomes clear that Alan Cumming has different ideas about the term. His Burns is indeed like a rock star, not just in the God-like status bestowed on him by his fans, but in his narcissism, solipsism, blackened moods of depression, self-destruction, entitled behaviour around women and yet, throughout all of this, a burning, feverish passion for the work he is creating. 

^{Pictures: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan}

This has been billed as Cumming’s debut dance role, and while the movement is mingled with monologue (taken from Burns’ letters and poems), Cumming is a revelation as a dancer. Dressed plainly in black pedal pushers and vest, he punctuates his words with gestures. He speaks plainly to us, in bold confident strides and thrust-open arms, and descends into mania, dancing demented jigs to Anna Meredith’s fantastic score (that melds Scots music into unsettling discord). 

Burn excels at conjuring up the dark chaos of the farmer poet’s mind. Where it comes up short - despite academic rigour - is in its presentation of Burns’ relationship with women. Although Frances Dunlop is raised up (literally) as a figure of influence on Burns, the nanny from whom he famously received his education in superstition (sparking his most famous work), is dismissed in a line (of Burns’ own) as ‘remarkable for her ignorance’. Do we still uphold these snotty-nosed values about the folk stories of the rural working class? Are they not an intrinsic part of Scots culture? Burn doesn’t even pause to engage with this idea.

Later the ‘follies’ of Burns’ relationships with women feature in a nudge-wink way that has the gentlemen of the Kings Theatre chuckling away. There are few sounds more repulsive than that of entitled men laughing at misogynistic jokes. Is the behaviour of his audience Cumming’s responsibility? Absolutely not. Nor is it his job to signpost to them how to react. But then, there is that tiny glint and swagger in him that makes you wonder if Cumming, as much as his Burns, is savouring a little too much the ribald chuckles of affirmation he is receiving by celebrating what is more commonly known these days as toxic masculinity. 

No artist is perfect, no matter how much they have been held up to be. 

King's Theatre, until 10 August, 8pm (matinee 9 & 10 August 3pm).