Has there been a greater lure in all the entertainment universe than the mad fools’ gold rush that is the Edinburgh Fringe? Why would our entertainers deem this stint so invaluable they will live in virtual matchboxes for a month - and hire venues so expensive that even 100 percent ticket sales cannot recoup costs – and compete against 3,500 other halls?

What is there about this festival, once representative of fun-loving, free flowing post-war rebellion, that now commands performers to appear, in spite of the risk of financial and, at times professional humiliation?

Fringe veteran Lucy Porter flashes back on how traumatising the Fringe experience can be. “My first gig turned out to be in a Sea Cadet hut,” she recalls. “I was going through a Goth phase at the time, so I thought I was prepared to be miserable, but I wasn’t. The only people who came to the gig were drunks and sea cadets, who thought the hall was still in use for sea cadet stuff. The other comedians in the hall and me all fell out. At one point I sat on the steps and sobbed and let out a primal scream.”

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In 1986, Paul Merton played the Pleasance to ‘around six people every day.’ “I can remember walking in the rain every day to the venue, but then one day I couldn’t remember how to get there. I think my brain was saying ‘I’m not taking you there.’”

Many performers assumed (wrongly) that consuming sufficient amounts of alcohol could help them deal with the Fringe experience. In 2012 Chloe Petts was a hopeful actor who turned up with a cast of 13 to live in a five-bed flat. Not ideal, admittedly. “I coped by going out and getting drunk every night, mostly........

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