Kieran Hodgson, Soho Theatre review - a love affair soured by Trump

Kieran Hodgson is known to television viewers from Two Doors Down and to online fans for his spoofs of TV dramas; but comedy fans know him best for his high-concept stand-up shows, which draw heavily on his personal life.

And so Voice of America, his latest live offering, follows in the same vein, charting as it does his lifelong love affair with America, formed years before he actually set foot in the 50 states.

Hodgson runs us through how the attraction came about. Departing from the views of his keenly Europhile teacher parents and their dismissal of “American rubbish” – whether food or films – he created a vision of America in his head. It was a lofty one, sparked in part by a book of John F Kennedy speeches he found on his dad’s bookshelves; the serious child overburdened by intellect (always lampooned by Hodgson) is a deliciously knowing trope that his fans will recognise from previous shows. 

His first visit to the States wasn’t quite all he hoped for – he and his friends had no idea of its vast geography in their overambitious plans to see everything – but he tells a touching story about his night at the Metropolitan Opera, the sort of crazy happening that perhaps could happen only in New York City.

Weaving through this Hodgson tells a parallel tale about landing a dream role in The Flash (a box-office flop). It was small but, importantly, as who knows what Hollywood roles might follow, his character, Sandwich Guy, was American – a chance to use the accent he had been perfecting all those years, which started with an age-inappropriate primary-school rendition of Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman”.

Hodgson’s love affair with the US is now conflicted but, he avers, this is not a show about Donald Trump, even though he breaks into lines delivered as The Donald.

His reluctance to examine more deeply his response to Trump’s America slightly jars, underlining how things don’t entirely fit together in a show that feels not yet fully formed. But it’s funny and clever - and anything Hodgson does is worth seeing.

• At Soho Theatre until 28 June; then touring until 26 October
• Read more comedy on TheArtsDesk