The Skinny on... Kieran Hodgson

What’s your favourite place to visit and why?
The entirety of the East Coast Mainline from King's Cross to Edinburgh. The greatest train journey in the world with five visible cathedrals, though you really do have to work hard to spot Lincoln.

Favourite food and why?
Chips. Humble, unassuming but universally-loved. Can't we all learn from them?

Favourite colour and why?
Royal blue and Birmingham City Football Club.

Who was your hero growing up?
Captain Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. High standards and he took things seriously.

Whose work inspires you now?
Limmy. Utterly unlike what I do and funnier than I could ever hope to be.

What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking?
Simon Rattle, Jacinda Ardern and my friend Natalie, the funniest person alive. I'm cooking chips and serving a Central Otago Pinot Noir.

What’s your all time favourite album?
Close To The Edge by Yes.

What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?
Sex and The City 2, and I'm confident that it's the worst film I will ever see.

What book would you take to a desert island?
I would take Malcolm Barber's The Two Cities: Medieval Europe 1050-1320, a dense medieval history textbook and I've thought about this a lot so please let me explain why. Because I reckon all the lists of various Popes and Holy Roman Emperors and weird heretical cults and crusades and things would provide lots of inspiration for me to come up with stories and little plays and stuff that I could say to myself while doing endless laps of the island. You take one novel you're screwed once you've read it a couple of times. Right?

Who’s the worst?
Litterbugs.

When did you last cry?
End of Home Alone at Christmas, when the family are all back and then the old man's estranged son turns up at the house and Kevin waves at him through the window and it's snowing and oh no here I go again.

What are you most scared of?
Making too much noise and annoying my neighbours.

When did you last vomit and why?
First time we were allowed in people's gardens after lockdown. Went to a friend's and drank rosé from 2pm until midnight. I was in tears before going to bed because I knew exactly what the next day would be like and it terrified me.

Tell us a secret?
I got a hamster when I was 11 and really loved it at first but then I was bored of it for basically the last year of its life and never played with it and then it died alone and unloved in a cage and I still feel so guilty about it and scared that it reveals some horrendous truth about my personality.

Which celebrity could you take in a fight?
That weird kid from Power Of The Dog, just.

If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be?
Bowhead Whale. They have a mouth a third of the size of their body and live for 200 years. Imagine the chips you'd get through.

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Big In Scotland (WIP), The Old Hairdresser’s, 19 Mar, 5.30pm, sold out; Blackfriars, 20 Mar, 7pm, £10