Interview: Kieran Hodgson
Three-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Kieran Hodgson is an acclaimed actor, writer and comedian. You may know him from his hilarious Twitter skits, impersonating the UK’s favourite lockdown TV shows (personal favourite: The Crown), or from any one of Netflix’s Lovesick, BBC2’s Upstart Crow or Channel 4’s God’s Own County. What you may not know is that he has a brilliant stand-up show all about classical music - Maestro - which was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award and rated 5* by The Telegraph. Chortle summed it up well: “You don’t need to know much about classical music to appreciate the story, but he does try to convey his passion for Gustav Mahler, without being too persistent in making the case.” It really is hysterical (I laughed for an hour straight when I saw it at Kings Place) and gets laughs in equal measure from classical music fans and audience members with no experience of the genre.
Hodgson is an amateur violinist and says “discovering music is a never-ending experience: there's always a new piece to hear, a new musician to meet and a new instrument to play… Music might at times seem like a luxury but it is an essential component in all education and all human experience.”
We had such a fun chat during lockdown about Kieran’s musical upbringing, some of the pieces and composers he can’t get enough of, and where comedic and musical performances diverge. Listen to the music mentioned in this interview on our Spotify playlist.
So let’s go back to the beginning. What was your journey into classical music? Where did it all start for you?
I am from a family of music lovers but not music players. My Mum and Dad had a huge record and CD collection when I was a kid and music was always on in the house and in the car. It would be very standard Dad putting on The Planets before school very loudly. It has some real heft to it so I was in!
Did you learn any instruments as a child?
At the time the local authorities subsidised peripatetic lessons in primary schools, so I had Council violin lessons from long-suffering teachers, and piano lessons from a nice lady down the road. I chose the violin in particular because there was a girl at school who I fancied, and she was playing the violin so I thought I could spend more time with her.
And how about as a teenager?
Through teenagedom, classical music was the only music that I listened to and felt some sort of ownership of an understanding of. Everyone around me was really into music but it was types of music that I couldn't quite process like nu metal. So I would just quietly go home and put on some Dvořák while they listened to Blink-182 and Sum 41.
Did you consider carrying on with music at university level?
I definitely considered doing music onwards, but my performing skills were not of a sufficient standard, and, mercenarily, the life of a composer is a hard life. Unless you're Hans Zimmer or John Williams, you're going to be struggling in obscurity for a long time because, funnily enough, people aren't writing late romantic symphonies these days because they wrote them all in the late romantic period. I thought I could be a very average musician or I could be a slightly better something else, so I went for this.
Do you still play the violin now?
It’s been a great joy to play in the North London Sinfonia for the last eight years, keeping my love of orchestral playing alive. It sounds weird for someone who performs on their own for a living, but I find it really awful to play the violin on my own. I can’t stand to hear it and I can’t stand the idea of other people hearing it, but put me in an orchestra and I become really uninhibited because I’m part of the big machine.
Why do you think that performance anxiety affects you in music but not in comedy?
It’s completely stupid, isn’t it? I think it’s because I've listened to so much brilliant classical music, I can just tell how awful I am in relation to how things sound. It’s not a useful attitude, and it’s one I’m trying to overcome, because music-making should be about creating joy for yourself.
“I cannot wait to perch behind an orchestra again as soon as possible”
You’ve previously said that you relish the challenge of trying to put a subject that a lot of people think is elitist or difficult to get into, to try and make that into an accessible comedy show for everyone. I applaud your approach.
I think you're always going to be facing the challenge of what an audience knows and expects and is willing to laugh at. And the challenge is always not to feel that you're excluding people. In Maestro, I knew I had a good chance of getting it right because I knew I cared about it and could communicate my love for something to anyone, even if they don’t like classical music. The jokes were always about me and the stupidity of my pretensions and obsessions, and so the audience was always in on the joke. The joy comes when you find something that can appeal in the same breath to both people who know, and people who don't.
What was the reaction to Maestro?
People could not have been nicer about it and the best comments were always the ones when people said “I don't listen to classical music and I've never heard of Mahler, but I loved your show, and I'm now going to try listening to Mahler”. I doubt that many of them will have even liked it when they did, but that's fine.
How do you react to the idea of innovation in classical music?
I love and applaud innovation and some of my favourite pieces of music are very innovative, but comedians never have the luxury of leaving the audience behind you. As a comedian you have to stay shackled to what the audience is going to like. A lot of the time, audiences like stuff that is new and innovative and weird, and that’s great. I would find it almost spooky to be a musician and not have the instant feedback from the audience.
BBC Proms
And how about innovation in the way that classical music is presented in concert settings?
One of the best concerts I've ever seen in my entire life was Aurora Orchestra doing Symphonie fantastique at the Proms. I was destroyed by how good it was, and the way in which they used what could be a gimmick – "we play it off by heart" – not as the end point but as the jumping off point, to then be freed up to do other things with the music and the staging that were never at the expense of the music, but always a really imaginative addition to what I thought was a shining beacon for what can be done.
We’re all missing live concerts at the moment...
I cannot wait to perch behind an orchestra again as soon as possible. Love sitting in the choir seats behind the orchestra, particularly if it's a very loud piece, like Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. Get me right in the middle of it – I want to be overwhelmed.
It’s a great place to watch the conductor’s face from, which is always interesting.
Part of the conductor's job is to be an emotional display screen for the music to the orchestra, and why would you not want to see that in action?
What a great description! Sounds like you’re a fan of the big 19th-century orchestral bangers. Who are some of your favourite composers?
We’ve got to mention the big guy, Mahler [who comes up a LOT in Maestro], with whom I feel both a psychological and a musical affinity with. He’s like a lifelong friend. Sometimes you’ll have a year or two when you don't see one another, and then sometimes you'll come back and be really close, and your relationship changes over the years. There are aspects of your friend that you used to like that you don't like so much anymore but you find new ones that you do like. Last night I put Mahler 6 on and I thought I’d do some reading but then I couldn’t read because I just wanted to enjoy and discover the music again. After 15 years or so, that’s a good sign. I also really like Bernstein, Shostakovich and Britten. And as I get older I’m really getting into Brahms.
What kind of music has been getting you through lockdown?
A weird old selection. There's been a lot of comfort food in the musical diet. A lot of Brahms and Bruch, which tend to be very silky and satisfying, and Brahms’ 2nd Piano Concerto. I have a Spotify playlist of all the pieces that we played in orchestra over the last few years, and a lot of the time that is my go to because it brings back good memories.
Many thanks to Kieran for taking the time to perk up my lockdown. Go follow him on Twitter @KieranCHodgson and while you’re there, follow us @alterclassical and we’ll keep you posted if and when Maestro returns.
Hannah Fiddy is a creative entrepreneur based in Bristol, developing new audiences for classical music. She is the Co-Founder of Alternative Classical and the creator of Humans of Classical Music and Concert Roulette. Hannah interviews prominent artists from around the world and writes articles about classical music.
Follow Hannah on Twitter @Hannah_Fiddy.