Tony Curran

"Ah, it's great to be back, sipping Guinness in the rain," says the Scottish actor Tony Curran, who has spent the last three years in LA filming blockbusters ( Miami Vice, The Good German) until being lured home to play Pentheus in The Bacchae at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Curran is currently at the top of his game - he recently won a Bifa (British Independent Film Award) for his performance in Andrea Arnold's Red Road - but you can see why The Bacchae appealed: the director is John Tiffany, whose production The Black Watch was the hit of the Festival last year, while his co-star is that epicene sprite, Alan Cumming.

It's Curran vs Cumming as the two actors square up to play the rivals, frolicksome Dionysus and stern King Pentheus. "I'm deeply affronted by his epicurean, indulgent nature," Curran says, speaking in character, of course, as the repressed and rectitudinous King of Thebes. Pentheus is, he says, "one of those uptight men who are suspiciously manly. One of those men who make you think, just go upstairs and put your ballgown on..."

It's a challenge for the bluff Curran, who says he has "nothing in common with Pentheus". Yet the part has been adapted especially for him; playwright David Greig had specific cast members in mind while writing this new version of Euripedes, from a literal translation by John Ruffel. "A man who speaks ancient Greek," says Curran reverentially. "He came into rehearsals and answered our questions, like the Delphic Oracle. Did you know The Bacchae was written 2,313 years ago?"

It's all a far cry from Miami Vice. n 'The Bacchae', Kings Theatre, Edinburgh (0131 473 2000), from Saturday to 18 Aug, then touring

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