‘I’m just a middle-class English nice boy who does funny voices’
KIERAN Hodgson admits he’s not an angry counter-culturalist like Billy Connolly or Frankie Boyle, rocks in hand ready to throw them at windows blocking out the light of change.
“I’m a very solid, conventional person,” says the comedian who delighted in the role as Gordon in BBC sitcom Two Doors Down. “I took very well to institutions [such as Oxford University] and remaining in them for a long while felt very natural. In actual fact, I feel a bit of a fraud amongst comedians.”
He adds, grinning; “I don’t feel the need to punch against authority. In fact, I wish to please the authority. And this certainly doesn’t make me one of the true rebels.”
In his latest stage show, the young man from Last of the Summer Wine country who has made his home in Glasgow sets out to look at the differences between how the Scots and the English go about their business of life.
Hodgson is trying to highlight the cultural schizophrenia he has endured/ enjoyed since joining his partner in Glasgow. But this must have been tricky, Kieran? You want to have a bit of fun with the Scots, their customs, their language, their mannerisms – but not be seen to go all Edward The First on them?
“That’s true,” he says. “The tension between the two sides of me is played out by acknowledging that all the bad things in my life are the English things. And in order to become a better human being I need to be more Scottish.”
It’s a clever device. By making the move in favour of Scottishness his psyche can indeed confront some of our less positive traits. “If you want to say the cheekiest things to people then you have a go at yourself first, which opens the door.”
What perspective of Glasgow did he have growing up? It’s changed massively in the past generation, but it was once very angry, dark, sectarian and homophobic.
“We’ve got to be careful we don’t open the door to sweeping generalisations here,” he suggests, “but I think Glasgow has been hard on itself in the way you’ve been hard on it and its artists are hard on it. I just finished reading Lanark by Alasdair Gray and the Glasgow he writes off is decidedly tortured. But you have to factor in that Glasgow has faced the great hurricanes of change fairly unsheltered: the tremendous transformation of the 19th century, becoming rapidly industrialised, and then the 20th century, becoming rapidly de-industrialised.
“The city bears the scars of those ups and downs, but I think it survives because of its hardiness on the humour with which it copes with it all. And what you have to say about Glasgow is that, while there are many dull and humourless cities throughout Britain, Glasgow is not one of them.”
On the subject of comedy styles, Hodgson’s content is well worthy of analysis. Yes, he doesn’t petrol-bomb an audience with statements that will blow minds, but he does creep into the psyche cleverly, planting ideas that will take hold, make an audience laugh and think.
“It’s maybe a strength – or a weakness – but I want to expand comedy to the remit of things which occur every day while, intellectually, I wanted to make a show about Scottish history, culture and perception.”
His shows have included pieces about Lance Armstrong and Britain’s relationship with Europe. “Sometimes
I was really convinced the universe would be mine when I won the school talent show
people like shows which reflect their own life back at them but, equally, they like to learn something new. And I like to share the shelves of my library.”
He was always marked out to be an entertainer. “I wanted to be applauded and laughed at from the age of six or seven, when I would mimic characters on Fawlty Towers or Blackadder to my parents or at family gatherings as a precocious party trick and the attention I’d get from the adults was highly addictive. But I was really convinced the universe would be mine when I won the school talent show doing a routine of impressions.”
What of Hodgson’s future? He’s acted in shows such as a Dad’s Army tribute, starred in Prince Andrew: the Musical and can clearly write. Will he follow Jack Whitehall off to Hollywood? “I would dearly love that,” he laughs, “but I feel I’m halfway up many ladders. Maybe I should pick one ladder and climb.”
He adds, grinning. “I’d never make the claim to be anything other than a middle-class nice boy who does funny voices. Meanwhile, I’ll just try to be interested – and interesting.”
Kieran Hodgson – Big in Scotland, King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Friday.