Alan and Miriam visit Scotland

Alan is married to Grant, and Miriam has been with her partner Heather for 54 years – so no wonder he felt nervous asking her to skip off over the border with him.  “I had to pluck up my courage before calling Miriam,” admits Cumming. “It was like asking someone on a date.” Although, with a Channel 4 camera crew recording their jaunt round Scotland together in a camper van, he’s happy to concede that it was a fairly “showbiz date”.

 

Not even the most optimistic matchmaker could spot much common ground: Margolyes, 80, is famous for her sense of humour, racy anecdotes and roles in the likes of the Harry Potter films and Call the Midwife; while Cumming, 56, has been everything from cabaret singer to Hamlet, by way of blue-skinned X-Men mutant Nightcrawler. 

 

But the pair have been friends so long they’ve forgotten how they met. “It must have been the 90s,” says Margolyes, “as he was straight when I met him, married to a lady”. (“Bisexual,” he corrects good-naturedly.) “We can’t give you a meet-cute,” says Cumming, referring to the Hollywood convention of a film’s romantic leads locking eyes for the first time, “but there is a lot of cute in this show. Though no meat.”

 

There’s certainly no shortage of charming moments. Swerving the obvious tourist traps, Margolyes and Cumming trundle from a pagan witch’s enchanted glade to a bracingly modern tartan mill called Prickly Thistle on the edge of the picturesque Cromarty Firth. “That was a real high point for me,” says Margolyes, “because it pressed all my buttons: history, culture, social conscience and these glorious old looms – I love old machines.”

 

As a surprise for her, Cumming called ahead and designed a new tartan for the pair of them – “something vibrant and modern, a bit like us two” he deadpans with a glance at his travelling companion’s walking stick – and the mill made blankets and even a toilet seat cover out of it for them. (“I didn’t like the latter much,” adds Margolyes. “I’m not somebody who likes fabric in a lavatory. I think fabric should be in the gusset of your knickers and nothing else.”)  Anyone can design their own tartan there (or tour the mill: pricklythistlescotland.com) – and the pair were delighted to find that anyone can drop in on an earl or dowager countess, too, at Castle Cawdor, near Inverness (cawdorcastle.com; closed until spring 2022).

 

“It’s a beautiful old castle, with links to Shakespeare’s Macbeth,” says Cumming. “And intimately connected with Alan, too,” adds Margolyes, “but I won’t say more, because it’s quite a discovery in the programme.  What I love is that it’s somewhere people still live, even with a portcullis and moat. I’d quite like to have a portcullis and moat, but I fear they wouldn’t fit at my place in Clapham.”

 

Fantastical gothic castle-cum-stately home Abbotsford is another stop (scottsabbotsford.com). “It was built by Sir Walter Scott at the beginning of the 19th century,” says Margolyes.  “Part of it’s available as a holiday rental, so I’m tempted to go back. It’s very comfortable, quite beautiful with all these lovely colours, and it’s quiet. I don’t like children much, and certainly don’t want to be on holiday around a lot of them, so the idea of having several hundred acres between me and them is appealing.” (Cumming calls the place “camp camp camp!”)

 

The itinerary for the three-part series also includes such natural beauties as Ullapool and its lovely Loch Broom; Ardgour, on dramatic Loch Linnhe; and the mighty valley of Glencoe (“where I raced Alan up a mountain,” boasts Margolyes, “him in a cable car and me in a 4x4. I don’t like heights, but the views were majestic: sharp, fresh air and sun shining on the water of distant sea lochs”).

 

But it’s the locals as much as the landscapes that the pair fell in love with.  “Everyone was so friendly,” says Cumming.  “It was like Cheers – everybody knew our names and were always glad we came – with Miriam as Ted Danson  and me as Kirstie Alley.”

 

Whatever the details of that dynamic, it seems to have worked. So what’s the secret to a harmonious trip in the confines of a camper van? “Well we didn’t  sleep in it, which helped,” admits Cumming. “That meant that all the habits that could have been annoying – like Miriam eating raw onions and farting loudly – were cute instead. In fact we’re much better friends now than we were before this trip. If we’d been trapped with each other in just the van, though, maybe it would have been different…”