As I write this I am sat in a student hall in Musselburgh, in Scotland. I haven’t been a student halls in over 20 years and it’s very surreal. It feels a bit like I’m in an open prison. It’s en-suite, but the shower cubicle is so tiny, I have to wash one side of my body and then turn round, come out and go back in, like a horse in a horse-box. I think I’m one kebab away from having to be taken outside and hosed down with brushes like an Elephant.

It’s hard to believe I am at the Edinburgh Fringe. The world’s largest arts festival. It’s also probably the world’s most expensive. The costs of renting properties in the city have risen so much, performers have had to live further and further away from the town and commute in. I think we are probably only a year away from people hiking in from Inverness with flyers in their rucksacks. Reasonably priced festival rents are like decent fresh vegetables in Edinburgh, you know they exist, people talk about them, but you’ve yet to see them with your own eyes.

The rent prices are on a par with the French Riveria. In fact, it’s probably cheaper to charter a yacht and go there for a month than it is to stay in a bedsit in Edinburgh during August and yet performers keep coming back.

It’s expensive, it’s competitive, it’s exhausting and yet we still do it. This is the dream; this is what fuels and traumatises performers. You might lose thousands, you might spend all day walking in the filthy streets of cowgate, you might see your own flyer discarded in a urinal, but you also might get your big break. It’s a place like no other. For one month in August, all the anxiety and hopes of aspiring performers are compressed into one town, the only thing larger than their neurosis is the flights of steps they must trudge up every day to reach the royal mile.

This year I am doing two shows a day. One in the afternoon about my daughter and her rare blood sugar condition (honestly, it’s more uplifting and funnier than it sounds) and a stand-up show at night all about consumerism.

When people imagine what it’s like to put on an Edinburgh show. A glamourous venture, in wonderful theatres, five-star reviews, and having to turn people away. The reality is often different. There are over three thousand comedians doing shows at the fringe this year. They say it’s a trade fair, but in reality it’s more like a gladiatorial battle to the death, with people using rolled up posters as weapons.

There are so many venues, and so many rooms. Comedians often get squashed into cupboards, under staircases, in the corner of hotels, and above coffee shops. All the rooms have sound bleed, and every single of them without exception is so hot, you could grow vine tomatoes in them. The insane thing is that we do this for an entire month.

When you rent the room, you are provided with a technician. This tends to be a student who is so stoned they don’t recognise you, even though you see them every day for the best part of a month. Their job is to stand in a booth and make sure the show runs smoothly. They often do this and then after five minutes of the show, just disappear, leaving you to deal with faulty cables, broken microphones and knackered lighting. Resulting in you shouting the show in the dark to the audience like a tragic town crier.

I say audience, here lies the real battle when putting on a fringe show. There’s nothing more grounding than having to jab a flyer into the hand of a passing stranger as they power walk past you. Trying to convince them that you are worth stealing an hour of their life for. I always go for the heavier weighting of paper for my flyers. Not only do they feel quality, but they also leave paper cuts so the potential audience member has a scar to remember you by.

The definition of madness is doing the same thing everyday and expecting different results and that is effectively what the Edinburgh fringe is for a comedian. Why would you want to put a show on at any other time of year, when you can come to Scotland in August, pay thousands to sleep on a broken futon, perform in a cupboard everyday and compete with over three and a half thousand other comedians?

This year one of my shows was in a nightclub. Not as bad as it sounds, but at the end of my show every night, they changed the place from a comedy club into a death metal hell hole. The music would kick in as I was trying to leave the building, it was loud, angry and unbearable, the sort of music you’d play to hostages to break them. I’m not sure which album it was but I think it was something like “Now that’s what I call Guantanamo bay”

Many of the shows are free, with the comedian standing at the doorway on the way out collecting donations in a bucket for the show. It’s basically begging, the only difference is beggars have the dignity not to dance around like morons for an hour in order to get their cash. The bucket is useful though, you can use to throw up in when you realise how much money you’ve lost, or to put over your head when you’ve had a bad show and can walk through the bar undercover.

There is all the additional industry machines that kick in when you’re at the fringe, it’s a world you never see at any other point in the year. No where else in the world will you be walking down a street and a four strong gag of drama students will box you in and hand you a flyer whilst saying, “Fancy Macbeth in space sir? You hear this all day, the bizarre and wonderful shows being pitched at lightning speed, “ADHD comedy?” “Donald Trump vs the Terminator?” “Jane Austin’s Chimenea?” “A one-man version of Ben Hur?” it’s ridiculous, although Jane Austin’s Chimenea has one a few awards.

PR and reviewers are a big part of the fringe too, they like to come along and feel valued for a month. Now this is not all PR people but some of them see this month as a free jolly bank rolled by struggling comics. There are some that put in the graft, seeing shows, hustling for contacts, but there are others that take thousands of pounds to drink cocktails, sit in a lovely café in the Grassmarket and get the comedian one article in the Shropshire times, a short piece underneath the adverts for plumbers.

Reviewers are also interesting creatures, some of these people are the most miserable folk on the planet, despite seeing hours of comedy a day. It’s like they’ve over indulged and now they’ve spoilt it for themselves. In Edinburgh everyone is a reviewer, it’s not just the broadsheets and the industry magazines, you get student reviewers too. They’ve set up their own little blog, “William’s first reviews” Mummy and Daddy have given them some pocket money to go to the fringe, and now they find themselves in a comedy show about complex issues and emotions, armed only with sixteen years of life experience, a new notebook from Smiggle and some sweets in case they get bored. They then post a confused three-star review about a show that they didn’t quite understand. 

The only people not making money at the fringe are the comedians. You hear stories all the time, the costs are eye watering. You pay for flyers, you pay to rent a venue, you pay for everything. Next time you’re at the fringe listen to comedians talking, you’ll often hear them say, “I’ve had a great fringe, sold out everyday, five star reviews, and I’ve only lost a grand!”

Most of the people that can afford to come to the fringe now tend to be pensioners with disposable income. There is nothing more wonderful than seeing old people in all their finery, having to walk into a disused Nightclub that smells like a teenage boys bedroom at four in the afternoon and have to endure a comedian screaming at them for an hour.

This year I have just come for two weeks to the fringe and am doing two shows a day, two different hours of stand-up comedy. The myth is that you just have to do your two shows and the rest of the day is your own, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In order to make yourself known to fringe audiences the best way is to do a short spot on a showcase and then exit flyer the punters on the way out. This is often material that is not in your hour show. There is always a risk in this. Enticing a lovely middle class couple into your show after seeing you do ten minutes about family holidays and then seeing those same people on the front row with faces etched in horror as you blunder into twenty minutes about your overly invasive prostate exam.

My wife and children come to the fringe every year, but the experience is very different for them. They have a brilliant time, for me it’s a place of anxiety and stress. My children see so many shows. They come into the fringe absolutely feral and leave sounding like middle class Guardian readers. They meet me outside of my shows, enthusing about what they have just seen, “Daddy, the Japanese theatre was to die for, such pathos!” I am mentally miles away, always thinking, it’s hard to be present, I’m at work and my head is never off.

So, it’s exhausting, it’s expensive, it’s ruthlessly competitive and you know what? I’ll be back again next year, because it’s the greatest place to be. You feel creative, inspired and you come back the sharpest comedian you’ll ever be. If you were a boxer this is like being on the heavy bag in the gym. There’s no titles to win, there are awards, but they often don’t matter, what matters is that you’re part of the worlds largest arts festival and just by being there and taking a show, you’re already a winner.