You know Gerald Lloyd-Davies, of course. Everyone knows Gerald Lloyd-Davies, who trod the boards alongside Ian and Judi until he had that minor unpleasantness on Parkinson. Or at least, you’ll feel you know him after an hour with Laurie Stevens – who dons a bald wig and fully inhabits her toweringly luvvie character for this conversational solo show. Stevens (who also wrote the script) joyfully parodies much that’s familiar from the national-treasure oeuvre, but the comedy’s a Trojan horse for some thought-provoking questions too.

The comic notes are familiar ones, but they’re hit with precision and perfectly on cue. Lloyd-Davies drops names, quotes Shakespeare, slips pretentiously into French; he amuses us with plausibly deniable bitchiness, and has an arsenal of ludicrous nicknames for his fellow thespian stars. He also, of course, speaks perfect RP, a trait that Stevens captures without resorting to parody. His exquisitely precise diction and old-money vowels conceal a surprising truth: that Gerald was once Geraint, and he hails not from Belgravia, but from Ebbw Vale.

He’s not hiding his past – in fact, he’s rather proud of it – but it highlights the script’s most important theme, that every time we adapt and grow we leave a part of ourselves behind. Without ever saying it, Stevens subtly captures a familiar regret about relationships neglected and pathways closed. Yet as he heads into his seventies, Lloyd-Davies feels he too is being cast aside: purposefully, unjustly, and in a very specific way. His whole life up to now poses a question, and anyone who argues he should “check his privilege” has really missed the point.

Underpinning that final dilemma is the irony that – for all Lloyd-Davies is a ridiculous establishment grandee – he’s braver and more principled than many who might sneer at him. For me, though, Stevens makes Lloyd-Davies too instantly likeable for that tension to feel real. He’s charming and dryly funny from the outset, so it’s natural to read his flights of pretension as knowing affectations, a joke that he trusts us to understand. The surprising directions the script later takes would land a little harder if they challenged first impressions, rather than confirming what we sense we already knew.

Aspects of the ending are gleefully foreshadowed – all that’s missing from certain lines is a winky-face emoji – but the final thoughts are morally complex, and feel a little hurried as a result. But I’ve no such notes to share on the well-worked character comedy, which draws just enough on stereotype to fuel its humour but quietly subverts much of what it builds. Whether you listen to Gerald Lloyd-Davies or simply laugh at him, Stevens makes this an evening well spent.