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Tiff Stevenson’s impressive set is well designed to make you laugh and think in equal measure. Her show takes you on a coherent meander through the absurdities of modern society, forcing us to take a hard look at where we are heading. Her show travels from gay marriage, touches on many topics of women’s inequalities, both here and abroad, from a Hollywood casting call for “a woman; mentally ill with no shoes” to entirely mindless consumerism and rap lyrics.

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I nodded vigorously as she laid bare our society’s adulation and subsequent rewarding of racist and sexist ‘arseholes’ and enjoyed her wicked smile as she suggested we all wear stripes in front of the epileptic Katie Hopkins. Her damning of racist police brutality in the US is particularly welcome from a white woman to an almost all-white audience, but racism in the US is perhaps an easier target than recognizing similar incidents right here in the U.K. Her clear talent for accents makes her welcome mockery of American rednecks in a Jack Daniels advert, recreating the ‘good ole days of the South’ and the insulting cultural appropration of Australian rapper Iggy Azalea even funnier.

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She’s skilled at integrating her audience into the show in a teasing but kind way. Cultural references are balanced to appeal to a wide range of ages. Phone calls and trips to the toilet are gently, rather than mercilessly, mocked so that we always stay on her side. Smiling sweetly in a red floral dress, she lets little bombs explode our complacencies; cheerfully nudging us all back to some semblance of sanity, like a more brightly dressed Gandhi. You’re left feeling like she’s someone you’d want as your best friend; likeable, brave and incisive. FOUR STARS

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