Fringe Binge 2016 Show #20 - Tiff Stevenson: Seven at Upstairs @ Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, 21-Aug-16

The last of my shows, and one of the biggies. Ms. Tiffany Stevenson is something of a goddess Chez Mikey. I saw her show last year and it was brilliant - I also walked away with some unusual memorabilia (a souvenir Madman tampon) and the vivid memory of her shouting "Vagina House! Vagina House!" at me. So of course I was going back for her new show.

FULL DISCLOSURE - if you've read any of my previous reviews then you'll know I wasn't really in a good place coming in to this show. Apart from beating myself up about Naked Girls Reading the Trilogy Of Terror had left me rather shaken and quite upset. As I stood outside the Assembly Roxy supping a pint (I managed not to spill it this time) I was musing. Had a wander then joined the queue my mandatory minimum 25 minutes before the start.

The Assembly Roxy Cellar is quite a big hall - could probably seat around 200 - 300 maybe. There were perhaps 30 of us in the audience - as it turned out this day was one of the quietest days in recent Fringe history. But in such a big space with so few members of the audience any performer was going to struggle.

Not that Tiff did. The consummate professional she performed a brilliant, funny, engaging and thoughtful set. The show was inspired by the fact it had been seven years since her first Fringe show, and structured around draft Tweets she had mulled about over the Paris attacks earlier this year. Lots of very interesting points, lots of extremely funny jokes, ending up with a spectacular story of drunkenness and vomiting in Paris shortly before the attacks and combining the fact that no woman EVER wants to receive an unsolicited dick pic.

I tried my best to laugh and clap and cheer (which was easy with such a good performer) but even someone my size can't fill a hall and despite her fantastic performance the atmosphere was rather against us. She apologised at the end which I felt she didn't need to do - it was everyone else's loss who hadn't come to see her. A full house the previous night, an empty barn the next - such is the performer's lot in the Fringe.

We filed out at the end. She was standing up at the top of the stairs. I wanted to go and say hello and ask for that ever-elusive selfie but didn't. I did Tweet her later and she replied, which was nice.

Shuffling out into the twilight I had one more show to go - Massaoke at the Gilded Ballon at midnight. But I had had enough at that point. I went back to Rose Street and the Kenilworth and had a mixed grill before the restaurant closed and, a couple of pints and a cheeky vodka or two later, Sorrowful Sunday came to an end and Fringe Binge 2016 was over. I shambled back to the hotel and, next day, I went home.

Later I had a Twitter exchange with Ms. Stevenson - she remembered me from last year, which was nice.