The Heroes Of The Fringe venues, run by Bob Slayer and Miss Behave, have over the last couple of years started to become known as the home of the most anarchic and 'alternative' comedy at the festival. Some would say the two venues are helping to bring the Fringe back to what it should be... experimental comedy, rather than slick corporate-sponsored homogenised stand-up.

Heroes @ The Hive is hosting performances like Chris Dangerfield's provocatively titled Sex With Children show, meanwhile Bob & Miss Behave's Bookshop (this year found down the bottom of the hill from the Pleasance Courtyard) has already been the setting of some late-night antics that are best not repeated in public.

We headed down to the Bookshop to ask Bob Slayer some questions...

Er, where are the books Bob?

We have found the perfect way to run a bookshop and venue - hide all the books, then when people ask where they are you produce Phil Kay's The Wholly Viable from under the counter. If you deliver it with the right flourish they invariably will buy it. It's just like Argos only without the little pencils...

You're pioneering the 'Pay What You Want' model. People can purchase a ticket in advance to guarantee entry, or take a gamble there's spare seats and come along for free (albeit then leaving a donation at the end). How is it working out? Are people actually buying tickets in advance?

Like a dream! I performed in a bunch of free shows; the economics are so much more palatable than the paid shows where you can sell £20,000+ worth of tickets and watch everyone get paid except you. But the problem with Free shows is that there is no way of knowing how many people are going to turn up in advance. It would be nice to know if it might be quiet so that you can flyer some more. Or, if you have to turn people away, it would be nice to have a mechanism to guarantee that they can get in another show in your run.

They are also a bit of a fib to the folks who donate - it's very easy to get hacked off with the folk that really do take you at your word and don't leave anything. So we came up with the best of both.

And yes people are buying tickets. In fact for shows like Ian D Montfort, Adam Hess, Phil Kay, Adrienne Truscott and others you are unlikely to get in unless you do get a ticket.

PWYW is a variation on the Free Fringe model established by Peter Buckley Hill. Does he have a problem with you?

Are you trying to goad up some inflammatory comments? PBH is a lovely man with an ideal. Unfortunately the ideal can sometimes get in the way of common sense.

Talking of other venues. If you ran The Plesance, what would you change?

I don't want to run the Pleasance, but I do really really hope to perform in there next year. Not as a comedian though, I would like to be a microphone. A friend of mine did a show there last year and he needed a wireless microphone; the nice people at the Pleasance supplied him with one but then at the end of the run they presented him with a bill for £10 per day for using it. That is £250. You could buy one for that. But, oh no, they would find a way to stop you using your own... "It hasn't been PAT tested" which will also cost you, like a technology based corkage fee.

Oh, and you know that microphone my friend used wasn't just doing his show... if it managed to do 10 shows a day, it is going to make £2500 over the Fringe. I want to re-train as a microphone. I'll stand half way down the room, repeating what the act is saying for the benefit of the people at the back. Or maybe I'll be a projector, imagine what they can make?

Ha ha. You can get BrewDog beers in this bookshop. There doesn't seem to be any sign of Foster's though?

I'd rather drink from the toilet (and I frequently do).

Have you had the Police in your venue yet?

We had two police come in during Stompy, The Half Naked Chef's show a couple of days ago. They wanted to stop his show due to a complaint by a passing motorist who was offended by the sight of him in his underpants and apron, gallivanting around in the streets outside...

When they asked to speak to the venue manager I appeared - dressed as a gnome, which did not fill them with confidence. However as luck would have it we happened to already have an off-duty PC in the audience at the time - it was his second visit to the venue...

When I was closing up the venue in the early hours on one of our first nights these four coppers parked outside the bookshop to get pizza from next door. I told them off for parking on a double yellow and then we had a good old laugh inside - I told them all about the daft health and safety requirements and how we had dealt with them and then got them to pose for a YMCA snap.

Health and safety requirements?

We love the Health and Safety folk and we had three of them come in during our set-up period. The first one made suggestions to the second one. The second one gave us a list of things to address. And the third one came in to check that we had done them.

The annoying thing is that none of them actually looked inside my toilets. It took four days to plumb them in and build the cubicles (out of old doors I found in a skip) - complete with a glorious hole (not a glory hole because our hole is only used consentfully). But they didn't find that. Each of them just looked at the doors and said "Good, you have two toilets...". I could have just leant two doors against the wall with the sign 'Bogs' on them!

They also didn't even wobble the bannister on the stairs I built. One guy said it looked a bit DIY. And of course it is. I am not a carpenter. I made it out of more of my found doors and I just kept adding more wood to it until it stopped wobbling. I have braced the bracing and kept going and now it's rock solid. The least the Health and Safety could do was give it a wobble.

Their main complaint was that the 'Exit' sign was not illuminated. We got it working for the third guy, but as he looked at it, something went fizz and it went out. It's good to see that even our exit light has comic timing. He stressed to us how important it was to have an exit sign illuminated if we would be open after dark...

Now. Our venue is a small one room shop, with one door going directly from the pavement into the main space. And the exit sign is above that. It was at this point that Tim Renkow piped up and pointed out the ridiculousness of the situation. Tim is a very funny and quick witted comedian, he can manufacture hilarity at the drop of a hat: "If there is a fire in this room", he said, "and people don't know that is the exit, then they deserve to burn..."

Health and Safety types are not known for their sense of humour and his face immediately went into a scowl. He turned towards Tim, presumably to sternly tell him that this was no joking matter. This was when he first noticed that Tim himself is a 'fire hazard' as he has cerebral palsy. As the Health and Safety man stood there a little flummoxed about what to say, I watched Tim pick up a hammer that was on the chair next to him. He gave it a bit of a shake, like he does. It was at this point I said: "Have you met Tim our carpenter?"

He twirled his polyester tie in nervous confusion and was soon departing with a vague suggestion that he might be back to check up on us during the Fringe. He has not, and the exit sign is now wrapped in fairy lights...

Awesome story Bob. Thanks for your time!

I hope everyone will come to Bob & Miss Behave's Bookshop. Ian D Montfort kicks off at Midday and we have amazing shows up until my own late night storytelling show at 0:20am. Listings