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The Traitors host Alan Cumming had his own moment of revelation off-set: He's playing Liberace in the Peacock reality hit
Cumming, who is bringing a dramatized rendition of Liberace's life to the stage this fall, connected with the entertainer while he was in Las Vegas for research

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If you're a player on hit Peacock reality series The Traitors, chances are you're going to learn something that surprises you. Less expected, however, is the idea of host Alan Cumming learning something that he doesn't already know. After all, the legendary actor and coffin-wearer knows from the beginning of each season who is a Faithful and who is trying to ruin the game for them as a titular Traitor. But that doesn't mean that Cumming doesn't have moments of revelation for himself - just take a recent visit he made to Las Vegas as an example.
Cumming was in Vegas to research Martin Sherman’s I’ll Be Seeing You, a play that Cumming is directing for Scotland’s Pitlochry Festival Theatre, where the Tip Toe star serves as artistic director. The production, which stars Sir Simon Russell Beale as Liberace in the leading role, opens this October, and so you can imagine why the director would head to the Liberace Foundation in Las Vegas for research. But as Cumming was touring the Foundation's visual history of one of the 20th century's most iconic entertainers, he made a discovery completely separate from his stage production.
"The man taking us around," Cumming told Deadline, "Said the thing about Lee was his outfits were so buoyant and big that he kept having to top himself. I thought, 'Oh my god, that is me in The Traitors,'"
In case you haven't kept up with Peacock's deceptive delight, 'buoyant and big' are certainly an adequate (or maybe even understated?) way of describing Cumming's outfits throughout the series. And the way he tells it, they're one of the reasons that the show is such a hit.
"I really love the fact that the clothes and the queerness of the aesthetic," Cumming said, "In a time in our culture where queerness and non-binariness is seen as a negative and not looked upon well by our leaders, that this show is so successful [...] One of the reasons for that is I, as a middle-aged man, can rock up in a weird, femmy outfit from time to time. It’s a really positive thing and I like that we will probably be changing people’s attitudes."
The Traitors is streaming on Peacock now.
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