Just do it, cyclist Lance Armstrong told a teenage Kieran Hodgson, in a daydream, halfway through the Holme Valley Mountain Bike Challenge, a decade ago. And now Hodgson’s just done it, with an absolute gem of a narrative comedy show about teenage cycling, sullied dreams and migrating from the north. It pins its tongue-in-cheek coming-of-age tale to the arc of Armstrong’s rise and fall, as doping revelations leave a nasty smear over the Texan’s heroic aura. And yet, his power to motivate still flickers: he’s inspired this imperishable comedy set, after all, and if that doesn’t quite atone for all the lying, cheating and bullying, it makes a decent start.
The show is a companion piece to Hodgson’s 2014 offering, about a school French exchange trip. Both animate the landscape of Hodgson’s youth; both cast him as a bookish, butter-wouldn’t-melt adolescent as grownup life looms. In both, too, he flits zippily between a wide range of instantly vivid characters – including, in this case, a nerdy cycling coach (“On your marks, get set, and let’s have a bit of a safety notice”), the bumptious ex-public schoolers he meets at uni, and the Look North broadcaster Harry Gration, improvising ineptly on camera when Yorkshire welcomes the Tour de France.
More character actor than leading man, Hodgson parlays meekness into major appeal here. He’s a delight to watch, and every line of his script is wired for laughter. Among the standout set-pieces, a TV promo for Yorkshire fuses northern cliches and ad-world idiocy into blissful daftness, and a Noël Coward-ish serenade, wooing Hodgson to the delights of the south of England, is an instant classic. If you choose to look beyond the constant fun, the show is also beautifully attuned to the bittersweetness of leaving one’s home, friends and certainties behind. But pre-eminently, this is about laughs – and there are loads of them.
• At the Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, until 30 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
