Wil Hodgson - Punkanory

I wasn't aware that Happy Meals came with free tattoos nowadays, but Wil Hodgson's arms suggest otherwise. The description on his flyer of “a deranged bricklayer that's wandered through a branch of Claire's Accessories” is pretty accurate, and once that startling pink hair and nail polish has gripped your attention, Hodgson manages to keep it almost unwaveringly for the next hour.

Just as Hodgson isn't your average bloke from Chippenham, Punkanory isn't your average standup. With his home town used for backdrop, this beer-bellied bard chronicles the banalities of small-town west-county life in a convoluted soliloquy, barely pausing for breath. The obsessive precision with which he recounts conversations and events makes for a well-observed but quite dizzying show. And as a great deal of his material revolves around his various eccentricities of taste and the consequent difficulties of being "the only eccentric in the village", Hodgson does feel at times like a bit of a one-dress-Barbie.

But his ingenuity is in the way that his narrative moves discreetly between circumstantial comedy and profound social commentary. An anecdote about fancying the Spice Girls masks a diatribe against the dehumanising of women by the media. His recounting of the time he met his tat-collecting match at the posthumous auction of a fellow “accumulator” is also a poignant reflection on mortality and legacy. Hodgson demands your attention, in more ways than one, but if you give it to him you'll be well rewarded.