Review: The High Life – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

By WJQuinn Apr 8, 2026 3:53 PM

I was 15 when The High Life touched down on BBC2—camp, absurd, and touched…by musical theatrics. I cannot claim it was a Quinn family favourite, but there was no escaping the cries of ‘Oh Dearie Me!’ from my older, more sophisticated cousins. For the uninitiated, the sitcom charted the chaotic flights of Scotland’s most spectacularly incompetent cabin crew: narcissistic stewards Sebastian and Steve, their tyrannical yet competent chief Shona, and the perpetually bewildered Captain Hilary Duff.

Now, after a 30-year delay in the departure lounge, the crew of the fictional airline Air Scotia has returned, courtesy of a heavyweight co-production from the National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep. The stage revival thrusts this dysfunctional quartet into a modern crisis: facing a hostile corporate takeover, the ageing crew must prove they are still fit to push a drinks trolley and save their beloved airline from the scrapheap. Judging by the packed, delighted Festival Theatre audience last night, that cult remains in rude health.

Scottish audiences are not naturally famed for their expressiveness, yet as each beloved original star took the stage, they were met with rapturous applause. You could feel the nostalgia-laced rapture fuelling the laughter, erupting over the very first exclamation of that famous catchphrase. This enthusiastic reception is the engine of a hefty 155-minute production that sits in a liminal space between musical theatre, pantomime, and variety show.

Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson Return to Air Scotia

At the absolute centre of this chaotic buffoonery, of course, are Sebastian – Alan Cumming and Steve – Forbes Masson. The script brazenly recycles material from the original series, requiring only a tiny update to evolve Steve’s angst over his 30th birthday into his 60th. It works fairly effortlessly as the pair slip back into the double-act rhythm which made them famous as Victor and Barry years before Air Scotia ever took flight. They mightn’t have been a professional duo for a minute, but they have lost none of the chemistry that forged their names.

Judging by the packed, delighted Festival Theatre audience last night, that cult remains in rude health.

Cumming’s star power remains undeniable, even when he flubs a line, playfully leaning into his current cultural status with cheeky meta-nods to The Traitors and the BAFTAs. Masson, meanwhile, anchors the farce with the formidable dramatic/comic chops that have made him a mainstay on the UK’s most elite stages.

Scottish Comedy Nostalgia and Generational Clashes

This shameless crowd-service goes down a treat, even if it slightly hampers the narrative momentum of the first act. Fortunately, the pace is rescued by co-writer Johnny McKnight. Scotland’s reigning Panto Queen ensures the dialogue is laced with hyper-local references, upping the nostalgia ante significantly with loving nods to Take the High Road, Creamola Foam, Balamory, Hannah Gordon, and Sydney Devine. Hopefully, the power of shared cultural memory lets younger audiences in on the backwards-looking jokes, while McKnight simultaneously lands piercing digs at modern culture, from AI to MAGA. The result isn’t always hilarious, but it is perpetually fun at the very least.

This generational tension defines the casting. You cannot put just anyone on stage in the shadow of the original foursome. In the stellar Louise McCarthy, however, the production finds the perfect antagonist. Playing corporate monster Heather Argyll, she is a vision of unhinged glamour, equipped with serious pipes and immune to being relegated to the corner. She is flanked by an even younger generation—Rachael Kendall Brown’s empowered millennial touchstone, Kylie, and Kyle Gardiner’s painfully shy new steward, Mylie. They provide a hilarious, if a tad underwritten, contrast to the legacy cast.

However capable the newcomers, that legacy crew is in no danger of being upstaged. Siobhan Redmond’s unmistakable voice is a delight. If she found Shona’s shoes at all tricky to squeeze back into, it does not show; her opening solo is a masterclass in controlled ferocity regarding the misogyny faced by powerful women in corporate aviation. Equally unhinged is Patrick Ryecart, let completely off the leash to indulge the space-cadet Captain’s eccentricities to the limit. He performs a one-man show in tandem with the rest, moving through the action like a grey-haired agent of genteel chaos.

Pantomime Politics and Theatrical Spectacle

Director Andrew Panton does well to keep these competing energies corralled into something resembling a coherent story. The plot hinges on a hostile corporate takeover, which threatens to rebrand the beloved airline as “Air GB”—an in-your-face metaphor for the fear of Scottish identity being corporately sanitised. Taking this cue, the show wears its nationalist politics firmly on its sleeve, complete with loving references to Nicola Sturgeon and a genuinely bizarre sequence involving the spit of Margaret Thatcher being shot from a bagpipe.

Director Andrew Panton does well to keep these competing energies corralled into something resembling a coherent story.

It’s when the second act plunges into hallucinogenically surreal territory—stranding the crew in the “Lower Largo Triangle”—the National Theatre of Scotland flexes its technical muscles with a three-way revolve. Curiously, though, the physical production as a whole resembles a high-quality game show rather than an immersive piece of theatre. It is a sandbox for the cast to interact with, rather than a fully realised world.

Musically, the piece fares about the same. The original score is perfectly fine, if not deeply memorable, aside from the superbly cheeky “You f’coff-ee, you f’tea”. Otherwise, The High Life’s stronger musical moments come with the title song and faux-Eurovision entry ‘Pif Paf Pof’, both survivors of the 90’s. Both remain pretty catchy, and thanks to sterling sound design, the cast and the on-stage band led by Sarah de Tute sound loud, clear, and proud. As a choir, the ensemble proves tuneful and punchy, and the choreography is perky throughout. If the older cast ca’ a wee bit cannier than the newcomers, they remain unmistakably perky. This isn’t a lazy cash-in; everyone on stage is giving it laldy.

In the end, The High Life operates very much as a one-off special rather than a musical with genuine theatrical ambitions. That limits its potential to endure as a standalone piece of musical comedy theatre. But as a shot of pure 90s nostalgia—laced with a loving layer of affection for decades of Scottish humour—it is undeniably delicious.

Featured Image: The High Life The Musical – Production Photography – Photo credit Tommy Ga-Ken Wan