My 10 worst fringe experiences

Juliet Meyers relives her nightmares

1. ‘Poo water-gate’: The venue was a ‘swanky’ nightclub that should never have agreed to be part of the fringe. One Saturday night, some of its drunk clientele pulled the toilets off the wall. Everything got flooded with foul-smelling water which us performers had to mop up the next day before doing a show to people holding their noses.

2. The tech who wouldn’t shut up: She often just chipped in and responded to things I said in the show. I had a bit where I pretended I didn’t know where Zurich was. She would just shout out, ‘It’s in Switzerland. You asked that yesterday’. She constantly insisted on making the lighting red or green and when I insisted I didn’t want that she’d exclaim, ‘It’s my show too.’

3. Daily furious texts: I very loosely based a character on someone I used to work with but I forgot to change her name for the first few shows. I only used her first name but admittedly my bad. She found out and her boyfriend sent me daily texts in capital letters demanding I change it even though I had.

.4 The fake review: I was in a show with someone and they wrote a fake audience review saying I was good but they were so much ‘slicker’ than me. Their odd overuse of commas gave them away.

5. Doing a show to one woman: I gave a lady a refund before the show and a free ticket for another day because she was my only sale, but she insisted she couldn’t see me any other time. I did the show to just her which was hard. Halfway through I remembered I’d given her a refund but didn’t like to ask for the money. Damn.

6. Being described in a review as a ‘game old bird’: Really? I know some reviewers are very young and others quite ageist but ’Game old bird’?

7. Posh kids: A load of ultra-wealthy 12 year-old kids who flyered next to me most days on The Royal Mile were doing a show called Chav the Musical!. They were so deliriously pleased with themselves and utterly blind to their privilege. They say you should never ‘punch down’ but in their case it was tempting.

8. When it ‘pished’ down: I got so wet one year all the flyers in my backpack (for my last week) turned into a giant papier mache turd with distortions of my face on. My phone never dried out and I had to buy a new one. Check you are ‘Edinburgh body ready’ by covering yourself and your possessions with goose fat!

9. Tough crowd: Knowing I had press in, the flyering team filled my room. The majority of audience looked bemused at my questions about holidays and laptops. Eventually one of them piped up that they were all homeless and the flyerers had given them comps so they could get out of the rain and sleep. I just wish they’d told me. They were all sweet and said hi to me on the street for the rest of the festival but it made for a very strange show.

10. GENOCIDE: Obviously this didn’t happen, just putting it in to remind myself to have a bit of perspective.