Alan Cumming says his intelligence is questioned as a Scot living in London

Actor Alan Cumming says he believes there is prejudice in London against Scots about intelligence, education and worth.

The X-man star, 56, claimed he suffered anti-Scots sentiment while living in London.

The actor told the White Wine Question Time podcast: “Being Scottish in London, there is subliminal and also sometimes not subliminal racism about that and sometimes I think it’s a class thing as well.

Read more:Barbican staff get anti-discrimination training after racism and bullying allegations

“But assumptions are made about your intelligence, your education, your worth because of how you sound.

“It’s other people, not just Scottish people, of course, but I have definitely felt it. It was definitely there and it wore you down.

“All my life I had always felt that Scottish-ness was a little less than – that was what the world told me.”

However he says his nationality is but is “celebrated” in his present home city, New York..

The Tony Award winner, from Aberfeldy, Perthshire, added: “I think it’s because you need a little support group when you first come [to London] and it is quite a difficult city.

“When I went to New York, all the things that I had been kind of reminded of in London, my Scottish-ness, my difference, the way I sounded, in a negative way, I was celebrated for.

“So that made me feel like I had a place at the table.”

Alan has a new show coming out on Channel 4, in which explores his Scottish nationality.

Channel 4’s Miriam & Alan: Lost In Scotland sees the esteemed actor venturing around his native Scotland in a mobile home, with a new friend in tow 80-year-old Miriam Margolyes.

Miriam’s father was Scottish, from Glasgow.

The pair visit the house where Cummings was brought up, and where he had to deal with a dad who was “violent and abusive”, as detailed in his 2014 memoir, Not My Father’s Son.

Miriam & Alan: Lost in Scotland starts on Channel 4 on Tuesday, November 16.