Kieran Hodgson bookended a successful 12 months with the scurrilous Prince Andrew: The Musical on Channel 4, an all-singing, all-dancing portrayal of the Duke Of York sweating (or not) his association with Jeffrey Epstein, and the seventh series of Two Doors Down, BBC One’s hit Glasgow comedy in which he plays highly strung Gordon. In between, his Fringe show Big In Scotland, the only slightly embellished account of how this proud Yorkshireman conquered Caledonia (or at least came to call it home), garnered him his fourth Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination.

Endorsed by Elaine C Smith, Gordon Brown and, er, Harry Lauder within the show, among those queuing to see it were Peter Capaldi, David Tennant, Andrew Marr and Ian Rankin, a roll call of celebrity that Hodgson modestly attributes to the cheerleading zeal of his Two Doors Down mother-in-law-to-be, Arabella Weir.

‘A curse in my life is that I’m always desperate to be friends with the teachers,’ admits Hodgson of his passionately in-depth, painstakingly researched live hours. ‘This was very much me presenting my essay on Scotland to the headteacher of a Scottish cultural school and saying “is it good?” All these worthies giving it the thumbs-up gratified the part of me that wants to show I’ve done my homework correctly.’

Resuming touring in January, Hodgson hopes there’s enough in Big In Scotland’s ‘fish out of water’ dynamic to turn into a sitcom. Unfortunately, he sighs mock-airily, ‘my ambitions tend in too many directions’. Indeed, this avid rail enthusiast is ‘desperate’ to make a show about HS2. ‘I’ve kept my love of trains in reserve as a matter for discussion on stage,’ he explains. ‘But there’s sufficient drama around that decision to justify doing something about it.’

Paraphrasing Orson Welles, he was handed the ‘world's biggest train set’ with the Prince Andrew show: now he’s writing Liz Truss:The Musical. ‘It’s a story with a perfect beginning, middle and end in our national consciousness that needs revisiting as often as possible,’ he smiles. ‘It’s both hilarious and quite emblematic of the mess that the Establishment can create, but also the swiftness with which it can clear that mess away.’ (Jay Richardson)

Discover who else made the cut in the The List Hot 100 on our site or in our latest issue, available at all good stockists across Glasgow and Edinburgh.