Nick Offerman – The Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow

Part homespun homily about the glory of woodworking, part seething, socialist manifesto for the overthrow of late stage capitalism, Nick Offerman’s live return to the UK offers a curious but compelling mix of folksy wisdom, gentle anecdotes and songs

Raging against the machines with his blunt contempt for online discourse, mass production and driverless cars, with a very funny guitar tune about being edged out of his marriage by robots, Offerman is plainly horrified by the state of America, expressing a stern, thinly veiled contempt for Donald Trump and a billionaire class that keeps everyone enslaved to algorithms.

Nostalgic for a more traditional form of community, with people taking pride in jobs that benefit others, while preaching self-sufficiency, he’s a champion of craftsmanship imbued with human time, love and effort, sharing from his new book, Little Woodchucks, written with Lee Buchanan, about instilling pride and practical skills in kids through building things out of wood.

The fruits of such labour are apparent in Offerman penning a song about making a ukulele, in order to force himself to take on the tricky task of actually building the instrument. He’s far from the best singer or musician – he’s no Duke Silver – but the passion he’s brought to the undertaking is infectious. And even in his most strident denunciations or most heartfelt expressions, his sly wit is never long from breaking through.

Unapologetically grateful for his salt-of-the-earth grounding in life, Offerman still seems bemused that he broke into Chicago’s theatre scene. Yet his ready self-deprecation and shift from set carpentry and carrying scenery makes his career more explicable.

Embracing those aspects of his persona that veer close to caricature, he occasionally alludes to his status as half of a comedy power couple and his enduring desire for Megan Mullally. However, between the sex robot song and an ad-libbed response to an audience shout-out, he very much depicts her as the one sporting the trousers, with him as subservient, adding a pathetic aspect to his otherwise gruff, alpha male energy, even if it’s in keeping with his avowed feminism.

As devoted to meat as his character Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation, getting dewy-eyed as he recalls an upbringing dedicated to its appreciation and sharing, he delights fans of the sitcom by encoring with Bye Bye Li’l Sebastian from the hit show – arguably the only equine-based love song to rival Father Ted’s My Lovely Horse – backed by support act Flo & Joan, who were on excellent form opening the night.

The ostensibly unlikely trio, much less so when you consider that the Portsmouth-raised Dempsey sisters began performing in North America, actually make a tuneful group on the self-mocking We Are The Radical Left.

Spoofing the spectre of socialism for the US, they pledge modest but essentially decent acts and olive branches to extend to their political opponents. Given the current direction of travel in the West, it made for a rousing, defiant and uplifting finale to the show.