“What is it about our role in Europe that gets us so agitated?”

Passion. Betrayal. Harold Wilson. The brilliant and ever-innovative Kieran Hodgson, last seen down our way cultivating a love of classical music in Maestro, returns to Bristol with his new show, an epic and surprising tale of how Britain joined Europe in the first place.

On a deeply personal quest for understanding, Kieran perfects a series of obsolete impressions and discovers that the 70s were about more than Tiswas, the colour brown and the words ‘Let’s go on strike again’.

‘There’s a delicious perfectionism here to the writing, structure and delivery that puts most other shows to shame’ ★★★★ Daily Telegraph
‘Ravishingly entertaining, informative, full of insight and plenty of laughs’ ★★★★ The Times
‘Incredibly dense in laughs…it’s not half as niche as it sounds, and ten times funnier’ ★★★★ Chortle

We caught up with Kieran for a full and frank chat on 1970s politics, whippets and flat caps, the B-word and geekery in all its forms.

Edward Heath, Roy Jenkins, Barbara Castle… names from a distant past for many of us. How easy has it been to bring these political figures, and that time, to life?
I think I found that the most fun part of the whole experience with this show. My instinct as a comedian is to do characters, and a big motivation with ’75 was to try and build fully-rounded comic creations out of what began as silly impressions I would do in my room. I guess I was drawn to the very particular modes of speech people used back then, I’m intrigued by the evolution of accents and dialects across time and geography.
So I began by playing with the voices and then dug into their biographies to find out what it was they would say on stage – how were they funny in a way that you could ‘get’, even if you’d never heard of them? That was a fun thing to work out and get right.

Edward Heath (pic: Allan Warren) and Barbara Castle are among the 1970s political heavyweights that Kieran Hodgson brings to life in new show ’75

What is the trick to wringing comedy from such a potentially dry subject as our historical relationship with the EU?
The characters, certainly. Political drama is as old as politics itself, and to get from drama to comedy can just be a question of heightening things – so I put words in the mouths of Jenkins, Heath, Powell etc which, I hope, give a fair indication of what they were arguing politically, but pushed that little bit into the ludicrous.
Harold Wilson liked to play up his working-class roots and had a habit of making deliberately down-to-earth analogies about football. So my Harold Wilson talks in endless references to whippets, flat caps, tripe, scouting and sandwiches. When it comes to all the historical and political detail, I try to stick to its emotional impact on the characters, or to make a virtue of necessity and exaggerate how insanely complicated it all is.

One review sums up the show’s thrust as ‘If not a common market, we at least need common ground – and to be able to love those with whom we disagree.’ Fair summary?
I would say that’s bang-on. I think there’s more than enough analysis and argument about our current situation to convince you one way or the other on the Brexit question, and so my aim in making the show was not to try and win an argument, because I’m terrible at that.
Instead, I wanted to understand why this question had become so emotional, what is it about Britain and its role in Europe that gets us so agitated? And so we have our little fun jaunt through history and at the other end try to find a way to live with one another again.
To echo a famous comedy of the time, I’m a great believer in the wisdom of ‘Love Thy Neighbour.’

You wrote a song to help you memorise all the English county towns. Please tell us more.
Oh, that! Well, I hate to break it to you but that’s slightly made-up, really. It’s exactly the kind of thing I used to do and I needed to come up with a fun shorthand in the show for my terrible acts of teenage geekery. The County Towns song just let me do that and have a fun couple of lines to sing for a laugh, but beyond that it doesn’t actually exist. Such lies!
Real examples of my adolescent nerdiness include the magazine I wrote for Star Trek fans at my school, the family tree and timeline I drew to accompany a particularly long campaign on Medieval:Total War, and my habit of taking friends on long walks where I would tell them stories from Tolkien’s The Silmarillion.

Your last three shows have been about Lance Armstrong, classical music, and now our relationship with Europe. Quite high-concept shows. Would you ever just stand up on stage and tell funny anecdotes about your life, as so many comics do, or do you like to get stuck in to a meaty subject?
I’m not sure that I would as I think my life is very boring, and also I don’t have quite the skill set for proper stand-up. The problem is probably that I don’t really see those as high-concept ideas! I just think they’re interesting topics and I want to share my fascination with people in an entertaining way. I’m aware that this is exactly the logic that led to my Silmarillion recitations – but old habits die hard, I guess.

Kieran Hodgson performs ’75 at the 1532 Performing Arts Centre, Bristol on Saturday, March 9. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.1532bristol.co.uk/whats-on-and-news/events/kieran-hodgson-75

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