How I spent 12 hours showjumping at the Fringe

Breakfast? Lunch? Who needs it when you can fit in 11 shows - and a queue or two - before midnight?

It was Michael Douglas who remarked in Wall Street that "Lunch is for wimps". What would he know? For the dedicated Fringe-goer, breakfast, lunch and dinner is for wimps. As for sleep, who needs it?

Hunger and sleep deprivation, however, are the least of your problems at the Fringe. Tracking down tickets and just getting around can be a challenge in itself. As for seeing a decent show, every ticket purchase is a gamble. But should you have the stamina, you can see shows from 10 o'clock in the morning through to 5 o'clock the next morning, choosing from art, theatre, comedy, street theatre, physical theatre, dance, book readings, poetry readings, long films, short films, circus performers and, if you must, mime artists.

I've decided to find out just how much a slightly jaded and not-very-fit 29-year-old can see in a day. A course needs to be plotted with military precision if I'm going to see anything at all. Is there time to get from one place to another in between shows? What if I get there and they're rubbish? What if I lose the will to live?

My day begins at 11am, with the Rubens show at the Scottish National Gallery. I had hoped my marathon would begin in a spirit of serenity but, alas, it is not to be. The exhibition shows how the painter studied, copied and updated the work of Italian painters. His copy of Michelangelo's since-destroyed Leda and the Swan, which depicts a winged creature with its beak rammed down the throat of a naked lady, is violent in the extreme. Nor is serenity to be found a short stroll away, at the Assembly Rooms, where the former Tory MP Gyles Brandreth is presenting Zipp!, a whistlestop tour of 100 musicals. We get everything from Singin' in the Rain to Starlight Express, from Mack & Mabel to The Man of La Mancha. "You need never come to the theatre again," quips our host. I don't leave any the wiser about the history of musicals, although the image of Brandreth in fishnets is one that will stay with me for a long while.

After unsuccessfully grabbing a sandwich – its contents spill out on to the pavement – I speed off to the Ego and Out, a venue in the Broughton area. It's a cosy place, scattered with tables lit by tea-lights, where kind staff bring you a steaming cup of coffee to help you through the afternoon. Once my eyes have adjusted to the gloom, I realise that there aren't more than six people present. There, we watch The Conversation, an hour-long piece of physical theatre, in a state of delight and disbelief. A girl cocoons herself in a sheet suspended from the ceiling, while thrashing out her childhood demons with a sinister figure on a video screen. It's one of those shows the Fringe was made for – overwrought, pretentious and really quite silly.

A brisk march across town, past a gaggle of jugglers and some sinister-looking mime artists, and I'm at the Pleasance, a clutch of venues on the south-east part of town that is host to some of the best stand-up of the Fringe. Beware of shows scheduled between three and six in the afternoon, though. Comedy's an evening thing, and it's the seriously poor acts that get saddled with the afternoon slot. I didn't have high hopes for Live! Girls! (any show with an exclamation mark in the title should be viewed with suspicion), but even they manage to sink lower than my expectations. The next act, Gavin & Gavin, also at the Pleasance, is equally unwatchable. After 40 minutes without a single chuckle, I give up, slip out early and head for the Gilded Balloon Teviot, where the duo known as Cat's Mother are performing Live! At the Mausoleum! (more exclamation marks, I'm not optimistic). There are at least eight walk-outs during this one although, to my astonishment, I find their surreal sketches fascinating and make it to the end. I wonder if I'm becoming delirious and resolve to find somewhere to sit down and eat.

This is easier said than done at the Fringe – the restaurants and cafés are packed, and the service takes an age. I settle for a plate of chips and a glass of wine before heading off to the Festival Theatre in search of something a little more serious. As it turns out, Tony Benn's talk is as entertaining as anything I've seen at the Fringe, and comes with the bonus of not insulting the audience's intelligence. Looking distinguished and fluffy haired in an armchair, his flask of tea near to hand, he proceeds to talk about the power of wealth, knowledge and technology. It pains me to leave after just 45 minutes, to return to the Pleasance for another three hours of stand-up.

The last three acts – Natalie Haynes, Jason John Whitehead and Plastic Cowboys – pass by in a blur. I'm hot, hungry, my head is swimming and every inch of my body aches from dashing about town. By the last hour, I'm taking in around one gag in five. Emerging from the Pleasance at midnight, I'm offered a ticket to Late'n'Live, a nightly jamboree where suicidal comedians take on a crowd of bloodthirsty inebriates in the hottest venue in Scotland.

Let's see. Over the course of 12 hours, I've seen 11 shows. I've walked for approximately an hour and a half, and spent 50 minutes waiting in queues. I've seen maidens being defiled by swans at the Scottish National Gallery and a woman in a nightie dangling from a ceiling at the Ego and Out venue. I've watched a girl assaulting an apple pie at the Gilded Balloon and witnessed Gyles Brandreth in ladies underwear at the Assembly Rooms. I've observed Tony Benn swigging tea in front of an audience of 3,000, and Natalie Haynes sharing her horror of Siamese twins. Do I want to go to Late'n'Live to watch desperado comics being stripped of all their dignity?

Oh heck – count me in.

'Rubens: Drawing On Italy', Venue 63, 10.00-18.00 to 1 September; 'Zipp!', Venue 3: 12.00 (1hr 30 mins) to 26 August; 'The Conversation', Venue 204, 14.00 (1hr) to tomorrow; 'Live! Girls!', Venue 33, 15.35 (1hr) to 26 August; 'Gavin & Gavin – Full English Breakfast', Venue 33, 16.45 (1hr) to 26 August; 'Live! At the Mausoleum!' Venue 14, 18.15 (1hr), to 26 August; Natalie Haynes, Venue 33, 20.45 (1hr) to 26 August (not 20); Jason John Whitehead, Venue 33, 21.45 (1hr) to 26 Aug; 'Plastic Cowboys – Growing Nowhere', 23.00 (1hr) to 26 Aug (not 20)