Comedy fans David and Carole Chapple (pictured here with Jarred Christmas) set a new record at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, having managed to fit in seeing more shows than anyone has managed before.

In fact, David smashed the previous record - he saw over 300 different performances! After a well-deserved sleep, we caught up with David to find out more about this feat...

Hi David. How long have you and your wife been comedy fans?

I have always been a comedy fan. I grew up with Monty Python and Spike Milligan, and with friend at school used to make up cassettes of similar silly stuff (Almost a parallel with podcasts today, but mid 70s). Like most fans though I only ever went to the big touring shows, the first of which was Billy Connolly at the Cornwall Coliseum around 1982. Carole and I's first comedy gig together was Bill Bailey at Plymouth Theatre Royal about five years ago.

Shortly after that we went away to London for two weekends quite close to each other and went to the Soho Theatre both times, picking up Sarah Kendall's late night gig. There we were introduced to Max & Ivan, Tony Law and Cariad Lloyd (doing Cockney Sam), amongst others. We were hooked and started going to as many live comedy nights as possible around the South West.

We did our first Edinburgh for a week the following August [2012]. We notched up 56 shows in a week, and over 150 for the year. The following year saw my work circumstances changing dramatically so we planned one last Edinburgh 'fling' knowing we probably could not afford another. In fifteen days we notched up 146 shows, which would have been in excess of 150 if not for an accommodation disaster.

By then we were blogging and were friendly with a lot of comics/promoters. Several were telling us we must be close to a record number of shows seen at the festival. This had not crossed my mind until then, but I did a search and found there was indeed a record for shows set at the festival: 169 by a Nigel Tantrum, set in 1994.

So you decided this year to go for the record?

Initially, it was just a pie in the sky idea. Having been double downgraded at work and on £8000 a year less than before, finances were almost certainly going to count against us. But I registered a claim to attempt the record with Guinness and started saving...

Around February it became apparent we would not be able to afford it. Accommodation was going to be nearly £1500, and then we had to factor in tickets and/or putting money in the bucket at free shows. We always put in £5 into the bucket no matter the quality, it is a point of principal. So we were talking thousands of pounds again, which we did not really have.

Before this point, Silky had said he would try and sort us out a performer's pass at The Stand to help out, and then someone else suggested I contact some of the big venues and see whether they would give us tickets for a day towards the record.
The first email was to The Gilded Balloon and they immediately came back and said 'yes', were hugely enthusiastic and keen to help as much as possible. The second, to The Pleasance, changed everything. They came back asking me to call them and when I did, they offered a challenge for us to see as many shows as possible at The Pleasance as part of their 30th Birthday celebrations. Carole and I had a Skype meeting shortly afterwards and the offer was something we could not have dreamed of.

It took us in a slightly different direction as it was going to involve a lot of non-comedy shows. But this was good in that the record encompasses all Fringe shows, not just comedy. So we were going to get a total Fringe experience. The Pleasance were also fine with us doing other shows away from them, which was important to us, to support as many of our performer friends as we could.
I went up to London for the Pleasance 30th Birthday Bash and got to meet lots of the lovely people there.

One of the key criteria for the record itself was that every show had to be in the official Fringe programme. This rules out an awful lot of the 'free fringe' shows, who are in their own brochures.

So how did you work out what to see then?

The Pleasance and big four brochure came out before the main Fringe programme so I could get the skeleton of the schedule together then. At the Pleasance's suggestion I planned a day at each of the Pleasance spaces (23 in total) and then planned around that. This was the singular best way to attack the record, as overruns always happen and being in the same room meant you were not going to miss the start of the next show. One of the main criteria for the record is that you have to attend complete shows.

Once I had the skeleton of the record, I went back to The Gilded Balloon and asked whether they were still OK with supporting us. They were fantastic and let us fill in lots of gaps rather than doing a whole day. Darrell at Just The Tonic also let us have whatever we wanted and Oliver at Underbelly also gave us the shows we asked for, and even came back asking whether we could fit more in with them, as they didn't want to be outdone.

We had to forgo following up on Silky's offer with The Stand, as I literally could not fit any more in. And The Stand was that awkward distance away, given I was planning 10+ shows a day with just fifteen minutes average between them.

An initial plan was for 287 shows. This went to 292 by the time I arrived. Carole being more sensible had a schedule of 228, but also planned days off to visit her family and friends (she is from the Loch Lomond area originally), and also wanted to fit in training for a half marathon in Cardiff in October. She also did a race at the Meadowbank stadium on her birthday on the 24th August, and did a PB!

You ended up seeing even more than 292 shows in the end though?

After nine days, I was one show down on the record. I picked this up shortly afterwards and then got it into my head I would like to get to 300. This was touch and go for a while, as I would get up an hour earlier to do an early morning show, then lost a late night one.

The first seven days were tough getting into a rhythm of having little sleep, but after that it was a matter of up to four hours sleep then the alarm going off and being showered and out within 15 minutes. Eating properly was very tough, so it was just sandwiches for the majority of the month.

After a bit more rearranging during the last week, my final total was 304 and Carole did 224, which included 20 shows I could not fit in of people we like and wanted to support.

For the purposes of the record, two of my shows are not valid. The Pleasance Opening Gala, and an early morning play. The Gala was not in the official Fringe programme as a free, one off show, so I expect to lose that. The play was picked up at short notice early one morning off the official Fringe App, but again was not in the official programme so may not be counted. The hardest thing was getting a witness statement for each show, this was an overhead that took more time than I would have liked. Also finding time for the loo was difficult at times!

We have been collecting autographs from comics in Steve Best's Comedy Snapshot book and Such Small Portion's Secret Edinburgh book and this was nearly impossible to fit in. Many the time we saw someone nearby, but just didn't have the time to stop and dig the books out (though I carried them the whole month).

You mention not getting much sleep. Was it hard to keep energy levels up at the end of each day?

The ends of the days were OK. After the initial adjusting for a week, the difficulty came mostly in the period 3-7pm, there was nearly always a show or two then that was difficult to stay awake through. Saying that, I only dozed off once for about 10 minutes, during a play a couple of weeks in, which was set in total darkness and had no dialogue.

While Carole was forgoing the really late shows, I would always come back home at 3am or so and find her still typing away on our blog. I would then spend an hour getting my paperwork ready for the following day before going off to sleep, which was always instant.

Very impressive! So, this is probably something everyone will be interested in: what were the best shows you saw David?

There were so many highlights. From the stand-up side: Danny Ward, Chris Coltrane, Chris Martin, Ivo Graham, Mark Watson, Matt Price, Sarah Kendall, Sully O'Sullivan (pictured), Nathaniel Metcalfe, John Robins and Jason Cook, to name a few. (Carole's favourite was Seann Walsh).

I found the sketch and character comedy to be particularly good and it is a favourite of ours. BEASTS, Catriona Knox, Joseph Morpurgo, Luke McQueen, Lazy Susan, Mat Ewins and Milo McCabe were great but my favourite of all was Beth Vyse - Get Up With Hands. I went to this on Carole's first day off and thought it was brilliant, so much so I went again with Carole and she agreed.

I thought it would have been good if one of the many artists using multimedia was acknowledged by the awards this year. We both thought David Trent had a fantastic show and should have been nominated.

There were also a load of highlights in Theatre and Children's shows too.

Flipping that question on its head, did you see much bad stuff?

I can honestly say there were only four shows that were atrocious, three of which were Australian! Though the worst was British and only in the schedule because it literally was the only thing on in its late night time slot.

Was there any difference in quality between free shows and paid shows?

I picked a lot of free shows of people that we knew well, so the quality was really high for us, but generally, the free shows tend to be of a lower overall quality. It stands to reason, as the paid shows usually have performers investing many thousands of pounds putting on their show, so it is in their own interest to make it as good as possible, a pressure not associated with the free shows.

Did you end up being part of any shows?

I probably got interacted with, on average, once a day. Beth Vyse was the most extreme example, when I got face painted (and wore it on to the two shows following).
As the Fringe went on and more people knew what I was up to, so a lot of acts would incorporate this, asking how many I was up to into their show. Mark Watson, for instance, who has also come to film us for a BBC Two spot a couple of weeks earlier. He has also spotted us a couple of time before that in the Pleasance Courtyard and asked how it was going. All the acts were friendly and welcoming and asking all the time how we were and how it was going.

So you saw more shows than anyone else... and thus are ideally placed to spot trends. Was there anything that kept cropping up?

The joke that kept coming up was a referendum one: 'If Scotland gets independence who will get custody of Wales?'. Slightly different wording variants of this I heard from at least a dozen different comics.

There were certain venues that were always going to overrun because of not enough setup time between shows. This seems to happen every year though. In the context of the record, I lost five planned shows as a result of overruns, but only twice did I run out of things to replace them with. The worst overrun this year was a full 45 minutes which happened twice.

Having experienced many different rooms, what would be the one improvement venues should make?

A lot of the rooms just get too hot as the day goes on. The worst I experienced was the Counting House loft, which was unbearable after midnight. This did also apply to a lot of the big venues.

And same question more generally, what one thing could the Fringe as a whole do to improve for next year?

From purely a punter's point of view, the Fringe App could do with being kept up to date. A dozen times at least, I turned up to a late night or early morning show, to find it either had been cancelled / didn't exist / or had been moved to a different time slot (and in one case a different venue) - all applied to free shows.

You've not really taken a break from comedy after the festival. You're back to seeing gigs in your hometown of Plymouth?

Went to a gig in Manchester to break up the journey back from the Fringe and now back to the local club shows but also a few other trips away planned. Falmouth, Bristol, Honiton, Totnes, Exeter, Cardiff and London within the next two months.

Do you think you'll try to see loads of shows at the festival again next year?

A definite no due to finances. Only caveat to this is that I will definitely be applying for a public panel place for the Foster's Awards next year. With over 800 shows under my belt in the last three years alone, I feel I would be a good choice, with a proven track record, no ulterior motives for doing it other than a love of comedy and proven stamina for the task!

As with the last two years, the three day Machynlleth Festival in May will be the main focus - this really is a special festival.

You can read David and Carole's daily reports from the festival and their subsequent adventures via their blog