I'm proud to say that in all my years at the Edinburgh Festival, nothing has ever happened to me which is interesting enough to relate to a third party.

Nick Revell: Sleepless, Gilded Balloon, 18:45

Helen O’Brien

The first time I did a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, our comedy group stayed in the basset-hound obsessed family house of a college friend. One of us had to sleep with their head out of the window to avoid a dog-hair induced asthma attack, one of us had to share a bedroom with a suicidal rabbit and one of us was treated to a basset hound peeing on their sleeping bag. At least the dog that shat inside did so at least a metre away from any of our belongings.

Domestic Goddi, Pleasance Courtyard, 12.55

Lloyd Langford

At a Perrier party a few years ago, they had a games room with giant Jenga etc. The main attraction was a large football pitch with four motorised scooters shaped like giant footballs. The aim was to score goals whilst driving these scooters, using an inflatable ball to play with. I tried it, it was good fun.

Fast forward about four hours later. It’s about 3am, most people are pretty wasted, and I’m standing by the side of the dance-floor. There appears to be some sort of commotion at the edge of the room.

Out of the crowd emerges a large sphere. The comedian Tanya Lee Davis has stolen a scooter and is proceeding to drive it full tilt into unsuspecting people during the last dance. She’s being chased by several men.

We cheer her on. It’s a truly magical moment.

I’m yet to see anything funnier in Edinburgh than a midget on a giant football ploughing into slow-dancing drunks whilst simultaneously giving the finger to the pursuing security guards.

Lloyd Langford: Not A Lover, Not A Fighter, Underbelly, 18.35.

Matt Green

The first time I came to Edinburgh I was a 19-year old student playing the part of a 16-year old work experience boy in a comedy show. One night the cast all tried to get into Late ‘n’ Live, but I was stopped at the door by the massive bouncer. ‘Got any ID mate?’ he said. ‘I’m 19,’ I said, my confidence possibly bolstered by several beers in the Pleasance Courtyard beforehand. ‘Yeah, but you look about 12!’ he chuckled. Normally I would laugh that off, but I was getting pissed off about all the jokes about my youthful looks, so I stared right into his eyes and replied: ‘Yeah! I know! That’s the joke!’ I didn’t get in, but I didn’t get beaten up either. Perhaps he thought it would look bad to be seen punching a schoolboy. Fast forward ten years later, and I’m performing my first solo stand up show. It’s about growing up and yet still being treated like a child. Plus ça change...

Grow Up Green; Pleasance Dome 19:00

Steve Williams

I was sitting in my rented Edinburgh festival flat with Jarred Christmas and we were in the front room playing PlayStation football in the World Cup final and he could feel his phone vibrating in his back pocket. He ignored the call, but they kept ringing him so he eventually stood up to take the call he saw his phone was on the table. He turned around to discover that it had been a mouse tunnelling underneath him on the sofa.

Steve Williams: The Ultimate Worrier, Pleasance Courtyard, 19.15

Tom Allen

As a performer I always find there's an enormous pressure to do something on your one day off. Most performers get just one day in the middle of the festival to relax.

Every year I've promised myself a walk to the top of Arthur's Seat or maybe even a train ride out to Glasgow. In reality I've never been that organised, although last year I did go for a bit of an adventure.

On walking round town I saw a bus heading for a place called Ocean Terminal. Perfect I thought to myself! What a wonderful sounding place - the terminal to the ocean; the gateway to the sea - the stepping stone to the rest of the world surely and what a wonderfully soothing place to spend a day off.

On disembarking from the bus I realised that Ocean Terminal is in fact a shopping centre. I had inadvertently spent my one day off visiting a shopping village, having a look round Next and treating myself to a jacket potato.

I bought myself a new pair of pants and an ironing board cover. It was one of the dismal choices I have ever made.

However, I did feel incredibly relaxed – almost brain dead in fact – which was perfect.

Tom Allen: A Voyage Round My Mother, Gilded Balloon, 18:45

Phil Buckley

Normally, when you have a reviewer in, they sit at the back and subtly makes notes, so that you don’t know they are there. But last year one critic sat at a table in the front row with a notepad and didn’t make any attempt to hide what she was doing. During the show I did a joke about it being hard to meet a girl in Salford because you first have to step through her earring to talk to her. The joke got a huge reaction and all I could think was, ‘Well done, that’s another star on the review’ – but then I turned round to see the reviewer had the biggest pair of hoop earrings I’ve ever seen…Phil Buckley: Laughable; Laughing Horse @ Meadow Bar 13:55

Jesse Griffin

One night at Late N Live in 1999, when it was down in the Old Gilded Balloon on the Cowgate, Ross Noble was compering and brought on Greg Fleet. Greg had a shocker, or rather, the crowd were so pissed all they could deal with were Ross's surrealistic flights of fancy (which I'm sure to them seemed like straightforward observations). In a comedy decision that'll go down as maybe the second worst in history - Greg decided to stay on stage and only leave when the crowd were quiet.

A mixture of stubbornness, intoxication, and a childish desire to win, kept Greg onstage for upwards of half an hour, as every time he got the crowd settled and he began to make his way off, some wag would heckle him and he'd be back like a school master saying things like: 'It's your own time you're wasting.'

After a while, in an upping of the petulance stakes, Greg sat down on the stage like a child that can't have the chocolate bear in the supermarket, and may or may not have started humming: 'We shall not be moved.'

I can't honestly remember how he eventually did get off stage, obviously he did because Greg went on to return to Australia and father a child, but I can't remember who won the battle, him or the seething mass of drunks/audience.

I do remember Michael Smiley glowering and pacing around up the back, threatening to punch anyone heckling Greg. It was a night to remember.

Jesse Griffin is in Wilson Dixon Rides Again, The Stand, 18.00. Greg Fleet is on at the Gilded Balloon, 21:30

Shane Langan from Diet of Worms

Last year I met (and was subsequently kind of haunted by) a very odd man at the Fringe.

The first day of previews I headed to the Royal Mile to flyer and was approached by a small man of about 28. He wore a large novelty top-hat which looked like it had been made by a four year old and big floppy white gloves along with stonewashed jeans and a Pulp T-shirt. He spoke in a low mousy voice, which was practically alien on the Royal Mile alongside the booming theatrical voices of the many drama students prancing around you.

He asked me for a flyer. I gave him one and, out of politeness rather than interest, I asked to see his. He was promoting a show called The Fantastic Roberto Di Magico, which he told me was a comedy magic act in the same vein as his hero Tommy Cooper.

The flyer looked like he had made it on Microsoft Paintbrush and he was in a venue I had never heard of. But he was such a strange, quietly pleasant man and his show sounded so rubbishly brilliant that I made a mental note to go along one day. He lingered beside me most of my flyering stint, not saying a word but relishing the occasional eye-contact.

The next day was the same. So was the next, in fact I spent the following three weeks flyering alongside the Fantastic Roberto Di Magico. I never saw him give out one flyer. For one reason or another I got to the penultimate day of the festival without making it along to see him, but I had promised myself I would.

So on the second to last day I grabbed the flyer from the big pile on my desk and checked the venue once more, The Bridge Rooms. I Googled it... nothing. I checked the Fringe website... nothing. I spent an hour on the net searching for any mention of The Bridge Rooms or indeed The Fantastic Roberto Di Magico.

As far as I could tell, neither existed. When I returned to the Royal Mile that day to flyer, there he was, same spot as usual. I didn't bother quizzing him about it, he seemed happy enough. I've been on the lookout so far this year, but I've yet to spot him.

Diet of Worms, Gilded Balloon, 17.15.

Tommy Mackay

I was playing in a bar as half of legendary Edinburgh duo Whyte & Mackay in the Festival a couple of years back. The 'crowd' consisted of a couple of barflys and a young chap who assured me that he was a close personal friend of David Byrne from Talking Heads and a guitar tech for the Rolling Stones amongst others.

I have an easily read face, and when it registered a sceptical harumph, the chap seemed hurt and asked if he could have a shot of my guitar. It seemed churlish to offend him further, so I foolishly relented. It was clear he couldn't play for toffee as he failed to extract a single recognisable note from the thing whilst awkwardly attempting to manipulate his fingers into any shape resembling a chord.

Soon, it was time for the set to begin, so I quickly grabbed the guitar off him. As I strummed the first chord it was blatantly apparent the thing was miles out of tune. David Byrne's 'pal' guffawed and started yelling I was shite.

Erudite sophisticat that I am, I told him to fuck off. He didn't take too kindly to this advice and leapt onto the stage, holding an empty beer glass in my face. 'You're gonny fucking die!' he whispered seductively in my ear. Resisting the temptation to smash him across the face with my guitar, I decided the softly softly, calm down, calm down approach might be more pertinent and backed away slowly.

Luckily, his homicidal promise proved to be an empty one and he too backed off. I managed to unplug the guitar, quickly announced to the gathering incredulous crowd that the gig was over and scarpered with comedy partner Mr Whyte. The gig has now entered local legend as the One Chord Gig.

Tartan Special. Laughing Horse @ The The Meridian, 17.50

Jason Cook

Back in 2006, at my first ever preview of My Confessions in The Stand, I asked a member of the audience where he proposed to his fiancé. ‘At the foot of Mount Everest,’ replied the bloke, Steve, with a deserved smugness. ‘Well I’m not going to those lengths,’ I told him. ‘I’m a Geordie, what I’m essentially saying is does anyone know a nice Weatherspoons.’ I was so proud of that it became a feature of the show and my club set. Fast forward to my first preview in Edinburgh of this year’s show Joy, at the Stand on Friday, and I started chatting with the audience. I asked if there were any couples in, and one lady shouted: ‘We're engaged!’ very proudly. I asked where they had done the deed only to be told: ‘You've asked me this before’ It was the same man, two years later. I clambered over all the chairs to shake Steve’s hand. Now that’s one of my best festival experiences…

Jason Cook: Joy is at the Stand at 17.20.

Phil Whelans

The City Cafe on Blair Street is a well known haunt for performers at the fringe given its proximity to the Gilded Balloon on Cowgate and, latterly, the burnt-out shell of the Gilded Balloon, Cowgate. It is notorious for its poor service.

In 1997, Beergut 100, the Punk Tribute Band in which I play bass had to do a sound check at what seemed to be around dawn and afterwards, we went to the City Cafe for breakfast. Despite the place being more or less empty, a waitress appeared just as we were beginning to have to draw energy from our stored fat.

Our guitarist, Bill Bailey - who also drops my name constantly - asked if he could have the Full Breakfast, but without the baked beans. The answer is, of course, ‘yes’ but the waitress replied, ‘I’ll go and check’ and before we could lasso her and drag her back, she vanished for another enormous length of time, after which she returned with the astonishing answer, ‘No’.

We stared at her for a time and then I realised - or thought I did - what the problem might be. ‘Ah, I said, ‘I think I see the confusion. My friend here is willing to pay the full price. He doesn't want 40p off because he’s not having beans.’ ‘Right,’said the waitress, ‘I'll go and check if that's OK.’ She disappeared yet again...

When she returned, she told us: ‘Cook says he can put the beans on a separate plate.’ After a long anxious wait, I said, ‘Then can you get him to put the beans on the separate plate and just not bring that plate or tell us of the plate’s existence?’ To which she replied, ‘Yes.’

Phil Whelans is in The Pros From Dover, at the Underbelly at 16:25. Bill Bailey is playing the Edinburgh Playhouse – but only on the 14th at 8pm.

Fiona O'Loughin

On my opening night I could make out the silhouette of a bloke in the third row. He was fast asleep, snoring and still holding a pint of Guinness. I asked my tech to turn the house lights up so we could all have a closer look at him – and it turned out to be my husband!

Fiona O'Loughlin, Gilded Balloon, 21:45

Isabel Fay

When I was just 18 I was performing in children's show The Little Mermaid as said mermaid - not the Disney musical type, but a dark poetic Brothers Grimm-esque version, which made drawing a crowd a little harder.

So the director thought it would be a fantastic idea to head down to Princes Street Gardens to promote the show by the ice-cream van, merry-go-round and – best of all – the fountain, which was covered in statues of mermaids.

Of course he then buggered off leaving me and four other cast members to flyer in our costumes: two sailors, a crow, a prince and me, the mermaid, in my costume: a tie-dyed body bandage usually used for burns victims. Basically a body Tubigrip. Nice.

So I thought I'd hop into the fountain and mermaid about in the water to attract attention. I hitched up my tail and waded into the stinking pond and perched on a merman statue's knee. It worked!

The kids were wide-eyed with wonder at the fable brought to life and the Dads seemed pretty interested too... until a park warden came to kindly ask me to leave the fountain as I was trespassing.

So I hopped out, waited for him to leave, and hopped back in again. Ten minutes later he very kindly asked me to get out again, in a fatherly 'oh you naughty thing way'. And I waited for him to leave... and hopped back in again.

Third time he was a little sterner. The fourth really pretty cross. And after nine counts of trespassing, the police, with full sirens blaring, flashing lights, screeched up to the fountain. And, in front of countless little girls whose dreams were pinned on one day becoming a mermaid, I was unceremoniously ordered out of the fountain by the Rozzers and bundled into the back of the nee-naw car still in full body stocking, barefoot and dripping. Leaving a chorus to wailing and sobbing children in my wake, inconsolable that the Little Mermaid had just been arrested.

I was taken to the police station and formally cautioned with repeated unlawful trespass still dripping with stagnant pond water.

Not every PR stunt is worth it - particularly since the kindly sergeant gave me his coat and pointed out that the water had made the body stocking see-through. Hence the dads. Still we sold out for the next week!

Isabel Fay: Don't Let A Gift Horse In The House; Pleasance Hut, 16.45

• Email your Edinburgh stories to steve@chortle.co.uk

  Published: 28 Jul 2008