Circuit Training 93: Tiff Stevenson Rocks Up

'Momentum' is a word you tend to hear rather a lot at this time of year - if you're into football. Comedy, not so much. But it kept popping to mind during this chat with Tiff Stevenson, who certainly seems to have the wind behind her.

The rock-loving comic garnered some pretty corking reviews for her last Edinburgh show, Mad Man, which she's touring as we speak, and hits the Leicester Square Theatre in late March. Tiff also toured with Ed Byrne in between, and has some handy recurring TV work, including a role in cult sitcom People Just Do Nothing and a regular slot as European correspondent on Australia's answer to The Daily Show. Her documentary about plastic surgery and aging should be out soon, too.

That career surge is well-deserved, partly because Tiff does an invaluable job for stand-up generally, as host of the weekly new material night Old Rope, in which comics of every stripe get to try out new stuff.

'Rocks up' relates to music, by the way, which cropped up curiously often in our chat a few weeks back. But first, let's muse on momentum.

What are you up to today, Tiff?

I had a meeting this morning about a TV show, another this afternoon, so you've caught me betwixt.

Are you in the zone? Pumped?

I'm pumped and in the zone. I don't know if I've got a show tonight or not, I can't remember.

The idea of forgetting whether you've got a gig must sound bonkers to newer comics, who spend all week worrying about it.

Yeah, there's a point you get to. I remember consciously trying to keep this week free: sometimes you look at it and go, 'ah, work, you're going to get in the way of my... work.'

It's hard to know which are the important jobs I suppose? People get spotted for great jobs at the smallest gigs.

Someone was asking me the other day about big breaks, and I don't think there is such a thing: I think there's a series of small breaks. You just don't know what's going to spark something: I was over in Australia doing shows and they saw me, and that's how I got the gig on The Weekly.

There was a Tim Ferriss podcast - the guy who did The 4 Hour Workweek and stuff - he said there does come a point where, if it's not a 'Hell, yes!', then it's a 'no'. And I think that's a point that everyone's trying to head towards: if it's a thing where you go 'hmmm, I dunno,' then it's 'no.' But I don't think I'm at that point.

You seem to have pushed on a bit recently. I suppose the snowball effect kicks in?

One job opens a door to another. But what I've learned, also, it's about what I want to do: if I'm not for someone, I won't bash on that door, I'll just go round it.
I do think over the last year or so there's been another bump up. I did 10 [tour] dates last year, a mini run to see if I'd sell, and this year, I'm in the smaller studio rooms, between 100-350, but I've noticed that I'm getting there and 'oh, that's sold out,' people have bought in advance. It's a really satisfying feeling.

Your crowd must be quite a mix, from the People Just Do Nothing fans, to the people who've seen you support Ed Byrne?

And Mock The Week is quite a young audience. One year in Edinburgh , 2012 I think, I had loads of 17 year-old boys and girls in the audience. I like to think that show was empowering, about plastic surgery and aging, I like to think they took something away from that. Being a woman is not about constantly trying to look like you're 20.

It was interesting seeing you open for Ed Byrne - a lot of support acts are almost apologetic, but you were super bolshy from the start: 'Tada! It's me!'

Ha! Yeah, I guess I've spent years waiting to be asked to do tour supports. I did a few, but never at the point where it would have been helpful. With Ed's tour, I thought 'Ed likes my stand-up, so I'm just gonna go and do what I do.'

I like the fact that you thought it was bolshy - I sometimes do quite high-status stuff, and I think that's really funny. The audience, I've gone beyond the point years ago of whether I'm funny: now it's about whether I can challenge them, get them on board with my ideas. I want to shake people a bit, but I think they responded well to it. There were a couple of gasps, but then they went for it.

Give us a synopsis of your own show...

It's called Mad Man and there's a few reasons for that - there's a thread in the show that's about advertising, but it's about what makes the person, how we identify ourselves. It's not two hours of one liners, it's funny, first and foremost, but asks some questions. I hope it's nourishing, I don't want it to be fast food, where you go and laugh then can't remember any of it. I want it to be more of a gourmet meal.

Nicely put. I saw you do a tremendous Stevie Nicks bit at Phil Nichol's Cray Cray Cabaret in Edinburgh, and his shit-hot house band [Good Company] were clearly impressed - are you a trained singer?

No, I've never trained my voice, but I've always known that I had one. I did a bit when a friend was laying down some house tracks, a couple of vocals, then at one point I was talking to Ben Ofoedu from Phats & Small about maybe doing a song together, years ago.

Stevie was in last year's show, and I had some stuff this year about changing words in rap as a grown-up feminist. Last year there was the whole Wuthering Heights dance, a Tina Turner dance as well. I suppose they're another way of expressing myself.

I'm working on a very rough sitcom idea at the moment with Rich Hall. If that goes, it'll definitely involve some singing from both of us.

He's a regular at Old Rope - it's interesting, you have a sort of maternal role there, but over the whole of comedy, given that everyone turns up.

I'm everyone's mum - I'll take that. When it first started it was comics playing to other comics really, but when I ran it with Phil [Nichol] I was like 'I want it to have an audience' - and I always wanted to have women on, I don't want to be the only woman on the bill.

It's quite nice seeing the shows up in Edinburgh when someone's completed it. Tony Law, the year he was nominated in Edinburgh, came every week. When Katherine Ryan first moved to the UK, she came to Old Rope loads.

It must be useful for new comics, seeing big names working through stuff. I actually prefer it to seeing finished shows.

Once shows become really slick you can knock the edges off them, but sometimes those edges are part of the charm. Slickness can be good, but it's often dead behind the eyes.

What are you up to next?

There's a couple of series of People Just Do Nothing, the new series is shooting. We're editing a documentary on plastic surgery at the moment, I'm not sure if that'll be straight-to-air or film festivals. Then also The Weekly comes back.

I like the format, from what I've seen: it's like The Daily Show, but with correspondents just being themselves, rather than doing sketches?

It's in that vein. Charlie Pickering hosts it and he's great, and correspondents around the world - Wyatt Cenac is the New York correspondent, and I'm UK/Europe. It's about whatever comes up really, I did stuff on the austerity marches, plastic surgery.

I'm doing a film at the end of the year as well, that's not announced yet. And Edinburgh!

Will you actually have time for Edinburgh this year?

Well, I always think that's when you write the best shows: the busier I am, the more I get done. I've already started writing bits of it: it's based around a trip to Paris where I did some shows, in David Lynch's nightclub, a month before the Bataclan, and weirdly I was in there drinking with Josh Homme.

Crikey - and he's in Eagles of Death Metal...

I don't know him, I'd just met him. There are only parts of the evening I remember, but this will be the thread, the overall story.

Also this weird thing after the terror attacks happened of people putting up pictures of Paris, almost going 'I knew Paris before it was famous.' I really lay into people for that, and then go 'with all of that in mind, here's my trip to Paris!'

This seems to have been quite a music-based conservation - have I just led you that way, or is it on your mind?

I think so, I've done stuff like The Kerrang Awards, round table interviews for Classic Rock magazine. It was a shame we didn't record that - it was me with Ginger Wildheart, Jaren Johnston from The Cadillac Three, and Mick from Uriah Heep - we talked politics, talked music, comedy, and Christmas... because it was the end of the year. I think that mix of people is really interesting so we're trying to get something going with that, getting people talking. All sorts came up: The Cadillac Three were talking about the confederate flag being flown at gigs.

Rock stars have good stories.

The year I did The Kerrang Awards I met Slash afterwards, so there's a story about him in this year's show, about band t-shirts, people wearing them for bands they don't actively support. There was an article in Look magazine that had me apoplectic, pictures of Fleetwood Mac, the Ramones, Led Zeppelin - and across the top it said 'you don't have to be a fan of the band to rock these cool Ts' - that's sparked this entire routine about how, actually, you do. Or you're responsible for them breaking up or dying. It does get quite dark there.

But that's a bit of who I am, and it makes its way into my stand-up. I like the rock 'n' roll aesthetic.

Tiff Stevenson's Mad Man is touring the UK now, including London's Leicester Square Theatre on the 31st March 2016. Visit www.tiffstevenson.co.uk for details.