Tiffany Stevenson: Along Came A Spider

Tiffany Stevenson is no stranger to the Fringe, having performed at the Festival since 2005, and starred alongside names such as Stewart Lee and Phil Nichol. Her latest solo comedy act, Along Came A Spider, is a journey through different events of her life, culminating in a firm belief that one need not always stick to the plan. Sadly, it fails to captivate.

Sitting through this show feels like picking the seat next to the raving madwoman on the bus and wondering if you'll ever make your destination. Stevenson runs through a plethora of predictable jokes, paying precious little attention to coherence. Although she has a certain charm and no lack of energy, a nice smile can’t save her material, which has plenty of shock value but little genuine wit. By taking pauses to help latecomers to their seats, and having to explain poor jokes to the audience, Stevenson further robs the performance of any narrative drive.

Her extremely wide range of topics, spanning from teenage mums to Bryan Adams and abortion, makes for a confusing and untidy show. In her eagerness to give the bewildering act some semblance of theme, Stevenson keeps returning to the subject of spiders, throwing fact after irrelevant fact about our eight-legged friends at the audience without it having any direct relevance to her current topic. To be fair, Stevenson tries her best to keep the audience onside in a cramped and uncomfortably hot venue, but ultimately this feels more like a hostage situation than a comedy show.