If citizenship of a country depended on cultural endeavours, then Kieran Hodgson’s Scottishness ought never to have been in doubt. Already an Edinburgh Fringe stalwart, Hodgson is a purveyor of reliably hilarious, niche-interest hours that nevertheless have widespread appeal. Personal, formative tales are underpinned by rascally but scholarly, informed social observations, and amiable, self-deprecating monologuing is enlivened by sublime, contained act-outs and cracking impressions. To his CV, the Yorkshire native has lately added the west of Scotland sitcom, Two Doors Down.

In the retelling of it, after delivering a poorly received best man speech, Hodgson casts the decision of him and his husband to relocate from London to Glasgow for the BBC comedy as, intermittently, slumming it and saving him, filling the gaping hole in his soul with a Caledonian theme park experience. With the likes of Elaine C Smith and Gordon Brown as his advisors, he has naïve assumptions about integrating with the earthy Celts, bringing some imperialist preconceptions to Scotland’s place in the union. Still, he’s swiftly committed to his new nation and gets possessed by the fantastical spirit of Harry Lauder himself for a showy, Pollyanna-ish number in which Glasgow cleaves this effete yet pompous Englishman to its cheerful, rough-and-ready bosom. Later, he even hurls himself into learning Gaelic, his best intentions for acceptance through absorption into a deeper, oral tradition not even surviving his first hostelry in the north.

The clanging, shortbread-tin romanticisms and cultural cringes from either side of the border eventually all but recede into the smir. But throughout, the charming Hodgson strikes a wonderful balance of supplementing his past wide-eyed and smug middle-class ignorance with penetrating insight and commentary on contemporary Scotland’s foibles and failings. The pithy, occasionally thorny satire invariably hits its mark thanks to him living and breathing just about every aspect of his adopted home. Ah, to see oursels as ithers see us!

Affectionate and droll, there’s just so much packed into Big In Scotland. But it merrily skips along rather than labours, with the considerable weight of the comedian’s effort. A humour-filled, exaggerated personal journey, it’s also a smart state of the nation(s) assessment, touching on the independence debate only lightly, and focusing on the ties that bind rather than divide. 

Kieran Hodgson: Big In Scotland, Pleasance Courtyard, until 27 August, 7pm.