I half expect to see Kieran Hodgson’s expressive features morphed into a character from Happy Valley or House of Gucci when he appears on my Zoom screen.

His hilarious one-man skits of movies and TV shows created in his Glasgow flat have earned him legions of fans not least the actors he mimics, who regularly retweet his videos.

“I owe him quite a few coffees,” says the affable character comedian, actor and writer, when I mention his latest endorsement by James Norton, aka Tommy Lee Royce, who described his take on the BBC drama as “genius”.

Born and raised in West Yorkshire, Hodgson moved to Scotland’s largest city “between lockdowns”, somewhere he admits he didn’t expect to call home.

His experiences, including a stab at learning Gaelic, are explored in a new show at Glasgow International Comedy Festival, which gets underway on March 15.

“I’m really excited about doing some life stuff again having spent a few years negotiating the waters of social media comedy,” he said.

“My live material tends to be quite autobiographical but I had hit a real rut because I’d run out of autobiography.

“I’ve had quite a tedious life [but] I’ve managed in the last five years to add a bit more biography to myself including this move to Scotland.

“It’s about moving to a place that I had a fair amount of preconceptions about.”

He agrees there is a “lopsided” view of Glasgow that tends to focus on the 'mean city' perceptions, from those living south of the border, perhaps more so than any other UK city.

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“It’s not to diminish the problems that Glasgow had [but] you get here and you find there is a far richer picture to explore,” said the Oxford University graduate.

Part of the show deals with his deliberations on how English people living in the Scotland of today are perceived.

“How much am I a foreigner here? Do I have a stance on independence? Do I have to have one?”

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His conclusion is that the question is a, “far deeper and longer-term one that most English people realise.”

“It’s something that the Scots have been considering for a long while and with a great deal of rigour for a long time and English people regard as a sort of hobby that Scottish people have,” he says.

“Living up here and trying to do my Scotland homework, I’ve realised that I would like English people to realise that this is a conversation they should be listening to if not part of as well.”

 

Hodgson is a three-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee but is getting a bit more attention from the Glasgow public thanks to the Scots sitcom Two Doors Down, which has been upgraded from BBC 2 to 1.

“I do get recognised and it’s completely down to Two Doors Down,” he says.

“In terms of recognisability, it’s a really nice level. I get stopped maybe once or twice a week and people just want a photo or to say ‘hi’.

“It doesn’t feel like I have to leave the house with a baseball cap on and dark glasses.”

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He started making videos based on impressions of characters from TV dramas including Succession and Line of Duty to alleviate boredom during lockdown and says he was pleasantly surprised by the reaction on social media.

He says he was slightly nervous about unleashing the Happy Valley one because it was his first in a while, but needn't have worried as the clip went viral.

“I was really in two minds whether to take the plunge,” he says.

“I did a bunch during lockdown when everyone was watching television and there was nothing else for me to do. I did one a year ago for Peaky Blinders which no-one really watched and thought maybe that chapter of my output is done.” 

Hodgson was raised in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire (“it really helped with the Happy Valley accents”) and educated at Greenhead College in Huddersfield, regarded as one of the best sixth form colleges in the UK. He went on to study History and French at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with a first-class degree.

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He says he first realised he could do impressions in primary school where he would entertain his classmates with sketches from the previous night’s TV.

“It gave me a bit of social capital in the playground,” he says. “In a way, I’ve advanced in no way over the last 30 years.”

He says he grew up "worshipping" impressionists including Rory Bremner, Alistair McGowan and Jan Ravens but now as an adult is drawn to comedians “who are nothing like me.”

“Limmy makes me laugh like no-one else,” he says. “I dream of meeting him but I would be very scared.

“To me he is operating on a level of humour several rungs above mine.

“The wonderful thing about him is how he ploughs his own furrow, in terms of what he is creating and how he creates and distributes it.

“He doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing the rounds of Soho. I really admire that.”

He retreated to the safety of a “social media bunker” after the release of Prince Andrew the Musical, an all-singing, all-dancing reimagining of the Duke of York’s fall from grace, which also stars Munya Chawawa and Harry Enfield.

“I thought it would be of no benefit to see what people are saying. Much of how people react is out of my hands.

“The reaction to it was one that Channel 4 were pleased about," he added.

"Their remit is to do things that no one else does and push boundaries.

“I think my career has survived it.”

Kieran Hodgson: Big in Scotland, Blackfriars, Glasgow, March 19 and 20. www.glasgowcomedyfestival.com