About John Cairney

'A Scots Prince of Denmark - One hesitates at this stage to add paint to Mr Cairney's gilded Hamlet... No need for apologia. This Hamlet, in flesh, blood, soul and brain, and crucifying, emotional torment, gloriously lives...' (Scottish Field 1960)

In a career that has spanned more than half a century, John Cairney has performed on every kind of stage from London's West End to the garden room of a millionaire's home in Texas, and before every kind of audience from Britain's royal family to a hall full of shipyard workers out on strike in Glasgow. He has worked as actor, recitalist, lecturer, director and theatre consultant, been published as an author and, most recently, exhibited as a painter.

'John Cairney gives a fine, stirring, totally sympathetic performance as Cyrano, coping easily, not just with the flashy bits, but also in a tender way with the great man's passion for Roxanne - a splendid job.' (Guardian 1974)

John Cairney, however, is, above everything else, an enthusiast and carries this enthusiasm into everything he does and his work reflects the freedom he has felt throughout fifty full, unbroken years as his own man in every arm of performance in all media. Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama as a classical actor and singer with a natural tenor voice, he had early opportunities to sing in opera or join the Royal Shakespeare Company or the National Theatre, but he elected to go solo and has never regretted it.

'As Macbeth, John Cairney is stupendous.' (Glasgow Herald 1989)

This has allowed him to travel around the world regularly and to shape his life as he wanted and not as a conventional career might have demanded. Now, after a full and rewarding career of his own making, he is ready to put a lifetime of theatre knowledge and experience at your disposal.

'Connaissez-vous Robert Burns? Connaissez-vous John Cairney? Si, ne manquez pas. 'There Was A Man'...En Revenche, je n'ai que des louanges distribuer a John Cairney...Quel acteur prodigieux de naturel - quel variete dans l'expression- dans le voix, dans le geste! Il incarne le poet Ecossais.' (Geneve Soir 1965)