EDINBURGH, during its festivals, can be like one big competition for the best party trick – from flaming nipple tassels to endurance portrait-sketching. It helps, of course, if you’re the youngest, oldest, most daring or even, perhaps, hold a world record or two. Here, we list just some of the people at this year’s festivals, who have records to their name, or possibly should.

Most head spins

Aichi Ono, from Kyoto in Japan, claims to have the world record for the highest number of head spins in one minute, at 142, and, indeed, you can see him doing them in an online video. But, according to the Guinness Book Of Records website it’s still Youssef El Toufali, who holds that record, at 137 in a minute. Whoever has spun the most or fastest, it’s clear Ono, who appears in Wasabeats Crew's Break Free at the Edinburgh fringe, is a remarkable human spinning top.

Speaking straight after he has finished a show in which he has done around 300 spins in total, he observes: “I do more if the audience gets hyper.” The 29-year-old, who began spinning when he was 13, recalls: “When I started I practised eight hours a day with my head upside down. I can now actually make a phone call, or eat and drink, or text, while spinning.”

None of this, however, seems to make him dizzy. “When I finish spinning it feels quite normal.” Some day Ono hopes to set a new record of 152 spins in one minute.

The hula marvel

Marawa Ibrahim may hold nine Guinness World Records in hula hooping – including the most hoops spun simultaneously (200) and the fastest mile run while hula-hooping – but that’s not strictly what she is at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to talk about.

Rather she’s there to discuss The Girl Guide, her funny, friendly handbook to navigating that really big challenge, puberty. Periods, body hair, sweat – it’s all there, plus a few pictures of stretch-marked legs that are all about keeping it very real.

Round the world in (less than ) 80 days

78 days, 14 hours and 40 minutes was what it took Mark Beaumont to travel round the world by bike, having set off from the Arc de Triomphe in 2017. During the trip he smashed two Guinness World records. “If you don’t have the ability to suffer, you’re not going to make it,” he once said. He talks about that challenge and his book, The Man Who Cycled The World, at an Edinburgh International Book Festival event.

Youngest playwright

It is possible that at some point in the long history of the fringe, there was some child prodigy younger than Isabel, the imagination behind the show I Let A Six Year Old Write My Show, but for the purpose of this piece, let's say she is the record-breaking youngest. Strictly speaking Isabel didn’t actually write it. Rather, as comedian Owen Roberts puts it, the daughter of his partner came up with the ideas in brainstorming sessions which were recorded, since he struggled to keep up with her “free form verbal diarrhoea”. Nevertheless, she was clearly at least its co-author, and reviews suggest an adult could never have created anything that funny – Roberts’ makes his stage entry to the strains of Let It Go from Frozen, while dressed in a chicken suit.

Oldest comedienne and burlesque performer

“I've got to the age where I'm seriously thinking about what I'll be when I come back," is a gag Lynn Ruth Miller was turning out in comedy shows four years ago. At 84, she isn’t the oldest performer ever on the Fringe, but her website does advertise her as “the oldest comedienne in the world”.

Chances are the former Britain’s Got Talent contestant who started doing comedy at 71 and is formerly known as “The Stripping Granny”, is the oldest performer on the burlesque scene too. Her show is on today, August 5, at Fringe By The Sea, 9pm

Nipples of fire

Okay, so this isn’t strictly speaking a Guinness World Record, but it ought to be. Kitty Bang Bang, one of the most renowned fire acts in the world, twirls flaming tassels from her nipples, at some risk to her skin and merkin. You can watch this marvel in the cabaret show, Little Death Club.

“I started doing flaming nipple tassels for a burlesque show in the West End called Hurly Burly,” she recalls. “I was doing my fire act in the show and the director, William Baker, decided that he wanted me to do flaming nipple tassels so I did some research, bought a pair and took it from there. There aren’t many performers who do fire tassels because frankly, it kind of burns!”

Longest Fringe gig

There are endurance athletes, and then there are endurance comedians. Mark Watson is the latter, capable of standing on a stage telling jokes virtually till he drops. Many comedians can barely manage an hour, but he just keeps on going. When, in 2006, he did a 36-hour gag stint, he didn’t register it in the Guinness Book of World Records, but it’s widely considered the longest Fringe gig ever.

Three years ago when he did a 27-hour show, he observed that such mega-shows had become, for him, "a bit of an addiction". “You can do so much with an audience in 27 hours. It does feel a bit tame going back to normal stand-up afterwards.” This year’s show, the Infinite, which comes in at just an hour long, seems positively finite.

Most portraits sketched in 12 hours

In 2016, sitting on the Royal Mile, by the Adam Smith statue, American artist and fringe performer Walter Deforest churned out 160 portraits, breaking the former Guinness World Record set by David Gilhooley in 2014. Last year, he was back, with his show Van Gogh Find Yourself, and breaking it again with 163. Will he smash his sketch record again this year?

Most political demonstrations attended in one day

Back in 2006, activist and comedian Mark Thomas set the world record for most demonstrations attended in one day, squeezing in 20, including one to stop MPs having more than one job and another to sack private tube contractors. Four years later the record was broken by sixth formers from Freman College, Buntingford, when they held 23 consecutive protests across central London, all highlighting a different human rights issue.

Thomas’s show this year – Check Up: Our NHS At 70 – could make you want to get out and set your own protest record.

Longest paper doll chain

Though Julia Donaldson didn’t herself craft the paper dolls that were strung together in 2013 to make the longest paper doll chain of 4.5 km, she did, with her fantastical book, The Paper Dolls, inspire thousands of children across the world to make them.

The dearly loved children’s author brings a new show to the Fringe this year, featuring some of her most popular characters and titled The Gruffalo, The Witch And The Warthog.

Most pierced

Officially the most pierced woman in the world, according to Guinness, Elaine Davidson is not only a Fringe regular, but Edinburgh resident and icon. Her Kinky Freakshow introduces the audience to her astounding and ever-increasing collection of piercings.

Back in 2000 when she first set the record she had a mere 462, but by 2017 she was boasting 10,503, including many that are internal.

Sword swallowing

Miss Behave, who brings her Miss Behave Gameshow to the Fringe this year, set the world record for female sword swallowing in 2004, when she swallowed seven swords – it has since been broken by Natasha Varushka with 13. Even that, however, seems unambitious compared with the feats of the legendary Edith Clifford, the world’s most famous female sword swallower, who in the 1800s is said to have swallowed 18.

“My goal,” Saunders has said, “and it’s kind of fallen by the wayside, is to break Edith Clifford’s record if possible. I just need a very good props maker.” For the Miss Behave Gameshow, however it’s less about the artiste stretching herself, than challenging the audience.