Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Alan Cumming apologises but urges Adelaide ‘not to be so sensitive’

Broadway legend Alan Cumming has apologised but urged Adelaide not to be “so sensitive” after coming under fire for his controversial comments about the city.

Broadway legend Alan Cumming has apologised but urged Adelaide not to be “so sensitive” after coming under fire for his controversial comments about the city.

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival’s artistic director revealed last week the home he was staying at during the two-week event was burgled, leading him to question Adelaide’s status as “Australia’s most liveable city”.

The joke didn’t sit well with Sunday Mail columnist Peter Goers – who not only described his comments on The Project as “cheap” but labelled his cabaret show as “the most self-indulgent I’ve ever seen”.

“Instead, in the tedious, cheap manner of innumerable second-rate Fringe comedians he has taken the money and run to Melbourne to slag Adelaide,” Goers wrote.

READ PETER GOERS’ FULL REVIEW HERE

Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Alan Cumming. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

“While I was in Adelaide I got burgled. In the same week that Adelaide was voted the third most liveable city in the world I got bloody burgled,” the cabaret maestro said on Network 10’s The Project last Monday.

“Then someone said it’s (the city) also got the highest rate per capita of serial killers and there’s also a big meth problem. So I said, ‘Oh, so it’s the third most liveable place in the world if you’re a meth addict or you’re a serial killer’.”

Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Alan Cumming at the Dunstan Playhouse in Adelaide. Picture: Tom Huntley

Cumming took to Instagram on Monday to apologise for his comments but said they were a way of coping with a “very violating experience that just happened to have taken place in Adelaide”.

“I’m sorry I was burgled in Adelaide. I’m sorry my passport, money, credit cards, keys and many personal items were taken and temporary home was ransacked,” he wrote on Instagram.

“I’m sorry I used humour to cope with this very traumatising incident, and pointed out the irony that it happened in the same week Adelaide was named the third most liveable city in the world.

“I’m sorry if I offended anyone with my comments.

“What I’m not sorry for is being told I should be ashamed for having mentioned any of this ... no one should be shamed for being the victim of a violent crime or coping with it however they need.

“Don’t be so sensitive, Adelaide. I love you. Again, I had the best time in Adelaide, in spite of this horrible thing happening.”

Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Alan Cumming. Picture: Francis Hills

Cumming also criticised the nation’s vaccination rollout on The Project, after he was forced to cancel his Australian tour in July due to recent Covid-19 restrictions.

“I’m in despair. I can’t believe that your Prime Minister said that it’s not a race to get vaccinated. I just keep thinking that, ‘Yes it is, Blanche’,” he said.

“I just feel bad for everybody. We’re going to reschedule as soon as I’m free and also the Australian government gets their shit together.

“I’m going to come back. I’m sorry to disappoint but it’s kinda not my fault.”

The first international artistic director of the world-renowned arts fest, New York-based Cumming premiered his new show, Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, at the Festival Theatre, and performed at a replica of his iconic NY venue, Club Cumming, in The Famous Spiegeltent.