But sitting alongside the “real” extras is a wide selection from the unsuspecting early-morning Edinburgh public, who have just been lured into the aptly named Wildman Room by the offer of a tenner each and the notion of celluloid immortality. Together we form an audience for the actors working on the film.
A voice drifts across the performance space: it belongs to the scriptwriter and director Annie Griffin, whose reputation was established by Channel 4’s hugely successful comedy drama of 2002, the Book Group.
“Steven is a comedian performing to you all. Tell them a joke, Steve,” she says, by way of encouraging him. Then she turns her attention to the rest of us. “Your reactions to Steve are very important, and it would be helpful if you found him very funny.” Griffin pauses for emphasis and then repeats: “You need to find Steve really funny.”
We’ve been instructed how to laugh without making a noise, but I am so distracted by the comedian’s performance, which involves him tweaking his nipples and grabbing his testicles, that I miss my cue. By the end of the fourth take, Dick tells the audience, “Now you know how I feel telling the same jokes every time”, but by this point everyone is laughing uncontrollably. “This is the best gig I’ve ever had,” he says.
On a budget of something rather less than £2m, the makers of Festival are attempting something that should be impossible. Throughout the anarchy of Edinburgh in August, they have set out to complete up to 30 location shoots amid the crowds who pack the city centre.
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There are 15 principal actors in the cast. They include Steven Mangan, last seen battling with acne in the television series Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years. In Festival, he plays the more glamourous Sean, a Hollywood star who has arrived in town. It’s a happy incidence of art imitating life: on the real fringe Christian Slater stars in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the very building we are filming in today.
Mangan’s on-screen partner, Petra, is played by Raquel Cassidy, fresh out of Channel 4’s Teachers. The film also stars This Life’s Daniela Nardini and her Festival beaux, the Irish actor Daniel O’Dowd, while veteran Jimmy Chisholm plays a theatrical impresario.
In a quiet moment, Chris Young, the film’s Skye-based producer, discusses Festival’s plot. The story, he explains, follows a group of disparate characters who have come to seek fame and fortune in Edinburgh and the drama is created as their lives collide. The scriptwriter, Griffin, might be American, but Young says she is blessed with the gift of insight, and all her characters are plainly well-observed fringe types.
“It’s ironic that it takes a woman from Buffalo to make a definitive film about the festival,” says Young. “In real life, there is a driving obsession about winning an award. There is a lot of sex and comedy, and the sex is extremely dysfunctional.” As for the film-making process, he adds: “We want the show to feel real. We are searching for naturalism and verisimilitude.”
These are all worthy ambitions, but exactly the things that put pressure on the artless extras. I chat to a man called Ritchie, one of my neighbours in the auditorium. He tells me that his girlfriend Merin has been plucked out to act as an understudy to a glamorous blonde called Nicky, who is played by Lucy Punch. Ritchie points to where Merin should be sitting only to find that she has been discarded and replaced with Punch herself. Life as an extra can be that short lived.
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But a couple of days on set have been enough to prove that the more seasoned performers have problems of their own to deal with, even if they are of a different nature.
As filming takes place curious members of the public can be found everywhere. The previous afternoon, out on the Royal Mile, Nardini attracted looks of recognition from passers-by, many of them overcome by her appearance in kinky boots and a mini-skirt. However, beyond the occasional autograph hunter, onlookers rarely came too close.
“People have a fascination with what we are doing when we are out there,” O’Dowd explains during a break. “So much is going on in the streets around us — with all the real-life street performers and leafleters — that we are not really interesting compared to the people who are trying to grab the attention.”
But that was yesterday. Here in the Wildman Room it is becoming seriously warm under the lights. I am feeling dehydrated and my stomach is grumbling. Mid yawn, I am accosted by a big blonde woman who shoves a large make-up brush in my face.
“This will take the shine off, love,” she says with the authority of one who knows. I was rather hoping she might be able to conceal the three spots that had appeared overnight, but she has not got the time to spend on me. Before I can whip out my lipstick, I’m informed that I will be in the camera frame with one of the lead actresses, Cassidy.
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“It’s good to start filming this early in the morning,” Cassidy confides as she plonks down next to me, “that way you get the haggard look of the festival.” Even the make- believe fringe can take its toll.
By now, the action is ready to roll again, and Mangan is taking direction. “Shall I flash my teeth?” he inquires genially. Indeed he should, reveals Griffin, who turns to the audience. We have to feign recognition of the hero when he takes off his baseball cap. “That’s good, very good,” yells Griffin as we make all the right faces. “I need a rolling shot, make it tighter, and . . . cut!”
Another scene is finished, another time-out called, and Mangan talks about his character, whom he says is spoilt, arrogant and childish.
“I suppose it’s tough at the top,” the actor concedes. “The problem when you become famous like Sean is that your world shrinks and you are wrapped in cotton wool by the people around you. It’s easy for things to get out of proportion, it’s a distorted world.”
But the character is fun to play, he says. “It’s just an excuse for being rude. That’s one of the great things about acting, you get to do stuff you wouldn't dare do normally.”
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For us extras, of course, the goals are different, fleeting recognition on screen and a story to tell when we’re out with friends.
Ritchie lets on that he is rather experienced in the work of the extra, possessing as he does the apparently sought-after talent of being able to wiggle his ears.
As for me, well, who knows? Maybe this could be the start of something big. “You take direction very well,” Griffin tells me after the shoot and I beam with gratitude.
Hope springs eternal in the film extra’s breast. Who knows what will happen after Festival receives it premiere at Cannes next year? For this budding star, it could be goodbye fringe, hello Hollywood.