Welsh comedian Vix Leyton invites Edinburgh Fringe to The Comedy Arcade

The Comedy Arcade, hosted by Welsh comic Vix Leyton, is a competitive anecdotes game and podcast played by a panel of comedians as well as storytellers from the world of TV, music and journalism - famous players have included everyone from Jordan Gray and Seann Walsh to Mark Read from the boyband A1.

As the show prepares to take over The Stand at 4:40pm every day of the Edinburgh Fringe, Vix takes on some of the most popular balls and shares some of her favourite answers...

Petty grievances

One of my favourite categories as I'm a petty bench who lives for drama. I had to pay £4.95 for a Diet Coke at a venue I was performing at what must have been about six months ago now, and I'm still thinking about it. In fact, I abandoned the first few minutes of my set to lambast it and briefly tried to make it part of my set, but it wasn't actually that funny, probably because it was too harrowing a reflection on how much everything costs these days.

It wasn't even a good Diet Coke, the ratio of syrup to soda was completely wrong and when I tried to complain the man behind the bar really did not care. I live in London now but I'm from Cardiff and I don't think I'll ever get over prices like that. I don't really want to. Mark Watson sparked outrage on the NextUp live stream last August by laying into 'tea Twitter'; people who believe there is nothing that can't be solved by a nice cup of tea. The conversation raged on Twitter for a fair few days after that. That episode is currently on NextUp catch up actually, if you want to watch it unfold in full.

Celebrity encounters

This was actually a double rollercoaster of a celebrity encounter featuring Suzy Eddie Izzard and Phoebe Waller Bridge. I was at an awards ceremony Suzy was shortlisted for and I had been excited all day to even be in the same room as the comedy idol I loved so much I had literally studied one of their sketches for my English Language A level. I am fairly word perfect on their shows, which is a fact they never needed to know - unfortunately for me, three wines in, they were about to.

I marched up, garbled the above information in one long noise, probably without breath, then, unsolicited, demonstrated my knowledge by breaking into a full rendition of Death Star Canteen followed by the encore no one asked for of the confusion of toaster settings. She blinked, politely and nonplussed throughout, and I was eventually gently drawn away by none other than the winner of the award herself, Phoebe Waller Bridge, to join her circle; I don't know if she was intent on saving me or Suzy but she achieved both. Obviously after that night, they both went on to do much greater, cooler things.

I can't decide if I would like to meet Suzy again; I'd love to make a new impression and apologise for that absolute debacle but I harbour the unsettling sense of foreboding that I would panic and just end up doing the whole thing again. So, in short, thank you Phoebe Waller Bridge, and I'm so sorry Suzy Eddie Izzard.

I basically generated this category so people could reassure me with their awkward, excruciating encounters with the famous. Sadly no one has yet matched this, except perhaps Ilayda Arden meeting Emma Watson in a ladies room, which is on one of the very early episodes. I might have to listen to it again while I pressure wash the shame off myself.

Worst jobs

One thing I have learned asking this question is I really did not know I was born when I thought I was doing bad jobs in the past - although honourable mention might have to go to being escorted from the premises of a job I didn't actually want after accidentally printing out an offer letter for a rival business on the work printer two days before Christmas. I had been for team festive drinks at lunchtime so arrived at a meeting drunk and dressed like a young Pat Butcher in my Christmas leopard print finery. No one was officially told why I left, but the rumours were pretty wild, which I quite like.

I think one common thing among entertainment workers who rely on the feast and famine of gigging is that they do a lot of random work in random places to support the dream. And no one has had as many absurdly awful jobs than Rich Wilson, or as many adventures and misadventures carrying them out. From his infamous time working at a gentlemen's sauna to running for the hills after burning out the gears of a lorry he was driving with the wrong licence, he was a house player last year and he never ran out.

Most embarrassing moment

I feel like I've covered mine comprehensively above - although I am always breaking new ground on this topic. Sometimes you can see the moment a comedian is telling a story and realises it is going to be material later down the line and some of it is so fresh. Zoe Lyons talking about her digestively-interesting marathon run a couple of weeks after; Sooz Kempner breaking off from talking about a gig for the Freemasons to say she'd never told it before and joking that it was actually better than her whole show (we know this to be false).

We also get the occasional requests to redact from the recording before a particular story is shared; names are named, and for Edinburgh Fringe live shows we are happy to go with the Chatham House Rule so the audience in the room knows they're getting a unique experience with often unexpected and detailed levels of honesty you don't find on podcasts. One redacted story from last year was about a chance encounter on a plane with Harvey Weinstein, who nearly offered this person their own series then got arrested. It was so gripping, the whole audience was on the edge of their seats.