Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Succession star Brian Cox unveiled as official ambassador

Now Succession, Rob Roy and Manhunter star Brian Cox is set to champion the country's biggest celebration of the performing arts after being unveiled as a new ambassador for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The 77-year-old actor, one of the founding members of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company in Edinburgh in 1965, has joined Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Eddie Izzard in becoming an official figurehead for the event.

The Oliver, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor is expected to help promote the Fringe around the world and champion the opportunities it can offer to emerging artists.

Cox, who is now an official patron of the event, was at the Fringe two years ago to produce the play She/Her, which his wife Nicole directed and starred in.

He also appeared in the city’s book and TV festivals while he was in Edinburgh.

Speaking at the latter event, he claimed it was “bloody disgraceful” there are fewer opportunities for working-class people to pursue a career in acting than when he launched his career and suggested he would be unable to pursue his childhood dreams of becoming an actor if he was leaving school now.

The Fringe Society is the fourth arts organisation in Edinburgh that Cox has agreed to offer his support to over the last decade.

He was unveiled as an honorary patron for the Lyceum ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2015, when he returned to the stage to appear in Waiting for Godot with Bill Paterson, John Bett and Benny Young.

Cox was announced as the figurehead of a fundraising campaign to help pay for a long-awaited refurbishment of the King’s Theatre in 2017 and was one of a number of stars to warn that its future was at risk unless a funding gap was bridged after the cost of the project soared.

Last year Cox joined a campaign to raise funding to reopen and refurbish Edinburgh’s Filmhouse cinema, which has been closed since October 2022.

The Fringe Society appointed Phoebe Waller Bridge as its first president in 2021 – eight years after she was propelled to fame at the event with the original one-woman stage version of Fleabag.

Izzard, who first performed at the Fringe in 1981 while studying accountancy and financial management at Sheffield University, was appointed as a patron two years ago.

Cox said: "The culture of the performing arts in Scotland is embedded firmly in my DNA and it’s impossible to talk about Scotland’s performing arts culture without talking about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

"I’m delighted to come aboard as an ambassador for this incredible event, and to champion its well earned reputation as a springboard and a proving ground for generations of performing artists past, present and future.”

Cox has been unveiled as an official patron of the festival days after councillors gave the green light to a new multi-million pound “headquarters” for the event, which will be created in a former school building which has been used as a community centre and a Fringe venue in recent years.

However the Fringe Society was dealt a major blow last month when it emerged that a bid to secure long-term funding had been rejected by the Scottish Government’s arts agency, Creative Scotland. It claims the Fringe has been left to “fall through the cracks”of support for the arts in Scotland, despite being valued at more than £200m to the city’s economy and selling well over two million tickets a year since the Covid pandemic.

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy said: “To say we’re pleased to have Brian on board is an understatement.

"He’s done so much to promote homegrown artistic talent, not just through his incredible CV of acting work but also through his patronage and support of organisations the length and breadth of this country.

"He’s set an iconic example with his own artistic journey, and an inspiration to both the established and emerging artists who bring their magic to the Edinburgh Fringe every single year.“We’re thrilled to have him as a champion and welcome his support in the months and years ahead.”

Born in Dundee, Cox started his career at the city's Rep theatre after leaving school at the age of 15 and studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before joining the Lyceum in 1965.

He made his name as a stage actor in the 1970s and 1980s performing with Birmingham Rep, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Cox's first major screen role came in 1986 when he portrayed Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter. He went on to star in the likes of Braveheart, Rob Roy, X2, Deadwood, Nuremberg, The Bourne Identity and Churchill.

He won a whole new army of fans playing Logan Roy, the Scots-born head of a global media empire in the HBO series Succession, which ran between 2018 and 2023.

Cox has previously spoken of looking upon Edinburgh as his “spiritual home.”

Speaking previously at the National Library of Scotland, he said: “Edinburgh is where everything came together for me as an actor.”

Ahead of returning to the Lyceum stage in Waiting for Godot in 2015, Cox told The Scotsman of the importance of his time working at the theatre.

He said: “I was a founding member of the company 50 years ago as a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old.

"The Lyceum was and still remains the most formative experience of my theatrical life, to be afforded the opportunity to observe and work with the greatest Scottish actors of their day - a formidable roll call that included Duncan Macrae, Fulton MacKay, Russell Hunter, Una Maclean, Calum Mill, Eileen McCallum, all led by the visionary, ahead-of-his-time Tom Fleming.

"Personally I owe him a great debt. He introduced me to the potency of the Scots language in theatrical performance and the tremendous tradition and variety of world class theatre practitioners that were integral to Scottish theatre.”