Start with full disclosure: The hardreading staff met Masterpiece Mystery man Alan Cumming at his Boston University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Friends Speakers Series appearance Monday night and found him to be the sweetest guy ever.
Exhibit A: His Twitter feed that featured this selfie with his mum:
So we were a bit dismayed when we saw this Names item in yesterday’s Boston Globe.
The comings and goings of Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming spent a busy day in Boston Monday. The Scottish actor, who stars on CBS’s “The Good Wife” and is currently reprising the role of the lascivious emcee in “Cabaret” on Broadway, began the afternoon at WGBH’s Calderwood Studio, taping a series of intros for the new season of “Masterpiece Mystery.” Then it was off to BU’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, where Cumming talked about his life and work. The actor was adorable as ever, even if The New York Times, in its review of “Cabaret,” called him a “little softer around the jaw.”
(Fuller disclosure: The hardreading staff has numerous connections to the Gotlieb Center, which we’re happy to detail upon request.)
Not to get technical about it, but said Times review of “Cabaret” was a full-throated endorsement of Cumming’s reprise of his 1998 performance as the M.C.:
Alan Cumming, who won a Tony as the nasty M.C. in 1998, is back, offering a slightly looser, older-but-wiser variation on the same performance . . . Mr. Cumming’s M.C., who commandeered a part that Joel Grey would have seemed to own exclusively, has become the new model for most interpretations of the role . . .
So that Names item might have been a little soft around the jawboning, yeah?
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 
Is this because you guys look like brothers?
Really – you think so, Hester? I gotta do something about my hair.