“Part of my new show is me talking of my worry about how I will come across to the Scots,” says comedian Kieran Hodgson, a Yorkshireman who has made his home in Glasgow since 2020.
“I worry that people will hear my RP accent and just hear the voice of Margaret Thatcher.
“That’s never anything I’ve received from people, but it’s in my head as an English anxiety. Having lived here for a few years, I find there’s no end of discussion to how the Scots see the English, how the English see the Scots, or how the English see themselves when they’re in England versus when they’re in Scotland.
“There’s plenty to dive into. I should probably write a book, to get to the bottom of things properly.”
In the meantime, Hodgson has written a new stand-up show called Big in Scotland, the story of his own quest to integrate as an Englishman in Scotland, which is touring now.
It premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, where it was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award – Hodgson’s fourth nomination since 2015.
If anyone reading this knows his stand-up, it might well be from Edinburgh, because the city’s festival loves him.
His first notable show in the city was 2014’s French Exchange, about a student exchange trip gone wrong, but it was the following year’s Lance – about his hero worship of and disappointment in Lance Armstrong – which really got him noticed.
Since then he’s picked up Comedy Award nominations for 2016’s Maestro, about his interest in classical music, and 2018’s 75, a comic retelling of the 1975 referendum on European Union membership.
As a storyteller he’s heartfelt, thoughtful and extremely skilful, but also deeply and often darkly funny, which is why we’re here.
‘I’m going to embody all the worst stereotypes’
Hodgson’s life changed in 2017, when he was cast in the role of Gordon, acid-tongued boyfriend of Eric (Alex Norton) and Beth’s (Arabella Weir) son Ian (Jamie Quinn), in the hit Scottish sitcom Two Doors Down.
He came north from London to film for a couple of months each year, but in 2020 his husband got a job in Glasgow, so they moved up permanently.
“I’m going to embody all the worst stereotypes of Londoners coming to Glasgow and tell you that I live in the West End,” he says. “I’ll move to the Southside when I have a kid, that’s another thing you have to do.”
He’s going native already.
“We feel very welcomed and happy,” he continues.
“Various quality of life indicators have shot through the roof, compared to living in a small flat in Zone Three in London. We have space and light and good drinking water that doesn’t leave limescale at the top of your cup of tea.
“I suppose I also have a cheat code on the computer game of life, being in a television programme that people really enjoy.”
Big in Scotland tells of how he felt when he first arrived, of how he wanted to ‘de-English’ himself and become a better person by being more Scottish. Yet would that be an easy task, and would it even work?
“I want the show not to disappoint Two Doors Down fans, so it talks about it, it can’t be ignored,” he says.
“At the same time, I want it to remain true to what I’m very grandly going to call my own comic voice, so the challenge is fine-tuning it to speak to various audiences and bring everyone along with me. At all times I make myself the butt of the joke and try to demonstrate I’m learning as I go.”
Elaine C Smith and Gordon Brown give stamps of approval
He hasn’t shied away from politics, either. Both his Two Doors Down co-star Elaine C Smith and ex-PM Gordon Brown appear as very different sides of Scotland’s political life, and fortunately both have seen the show and given it their blessing.
“There’s a scene where I blunder into a conversation with Elaine, early in our relationship,” he says.
“I basically spew at her every ill-thought-through assumption about the Scots, imagining she will laugh along at the ludicrousness of Scottish accents and how obviously we’re all a big happy Union family and nothing’s going to change that. Of course, this goes down like a lead balloon.
“It’s funny, independence is so often the only thing English people imagine Scots are discussing. When I visit friends in England the first question is, ‘do you think they’ll go independent then?’
“Coming to Scotland, you realise that question has been looked at in far more detail for decades than it has been in England, but also that there are many other sides to Scottish politics and to what Scots care about and are concerned with.
“In many ways these align with England, more than you would think. At every turn Scotland subverts your expectations, which I imagine is something such a cheeky nation will be very proud of.”
Kieran Hodgson: ‘It’s humbling to be here’
There are also jokes about macaroni pies and the dominance of the Arnold Clark chain, both for Scottish audiences only, because they’d fly right over English heads.
“People have been receptive to the journey I go on,” says Hodgson.
“I want to demonstrate the universality of someone arriving in a new place, wanting to redefine themselves and getting confused as to what the definition ought to be. Of course, there are many Scotlands.
“Coming here as an outsider, you’re able to see the United Kingdom in a different way. It’s humbling to be here and see, perhaps, the narrowness of more Anglo-centric ways of viewing the world and the country.
“Growing up is a process of becoming more humble as life teaches you that you weren’t so smart after all. In which case, I guess living in Scotland is the equivalent to growing up fast.”
Kieran Hodgson: Big in Scotland is at the Byre Theatre, St Andrews, Thursday October 26, and Perth Theatre, Friday November 3.
