Fringe pair stay trapped in 4ft diameter pods to raise cash for show

But two students willingly signed up for what must be most people's idea of torture – all in the name of fundraising.

William Green and Matt Wieteska spent 26 hours curled up in the "escape" pod, without being able to stretch out, sleep for any more than two hours at a time or even go to the bathroom.

Members of the public were able to watch their plight live on a specially dedicated website and got the chance to choose the music they should be subjected to every two hours.

While some people were sympathetic and chose soothing tunes, others were more sadistic and made requests for the Crazy Frog or loud heavy metal to be transmitted into their headphones in return for a donation to the students' cause.

Mr Green, 19, and Mr Wieteska, 23, chose to get inside the pods for more than a full day to raise money to cover the cost of a show they are putting on at this year's Fringe, called Escape.

And despite having to put up with the aural "stress tests" and having to urinate into a bottle inside their pods – producing 5.3 litres in total – the students rose to the challenge and completed the 26 hours.

Mr Wieteska said: "In some ways it was easier than we thought it would be, but in some ways it was a lot harder. The most difficult part was between 3am and 7am when we had been in there a long time and ran out of things to say to each other.

"We wanted to sleep but it was too uncomfortable and we were too exhausted to think of anything to talk about. It was a very lonely and depressing four hours."

More than 3700 messages were left in the online chat room by well-wishers during their stint in the pods and the website attracted more than 1400 hits.

The pair, who were supervised at all times by fellow members of the Edinburgh University Theatre Company to ensure they stuck to the rules, were fed nothing but hot dogs every six hours.

Student Eleanor Chalmers, 19, said the stunt replicated the main characters' challenges in Escape while travelling back to Earth in a pod.

She said: "It's taking method acting to the extreme.

It is a bit extreme but they came up with the idea themselves because they like to push the boundaries."

The students' pods were located in one of Edinburgh University's Pleasance buildings, and friends dropped by to see how they were getting along with their challenge.

The play, written by Mr Wieteska, will be doing a full run at the Bedlam Theatre during the Fringe, starting from 9 August.

As the group raised almost 800 and have covered their production costs, they are donating a percentage of the fundraising money to civil liberties charity the Open Rights Group.