The moment a Fringe performer discovered he had made US talent show while walking on Salisbury Crags

Improv rapper Chris Turner, who is from the UK but is now based in New York, said he had decided to enter the competition after getting his American citizenship.

He said: “ I am American now, I've got citizenship. So I entered the competition, and I did my audition in front of Simon Cowell and Scary Spice, Mel B. I got four yeses, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you actually get a yes to appear in the live quarter finals, but I just got the phone call saying I am through, which is very exciting and a very big deal.”

He said he had been walking on Salisbury Crags, near Arthur’s Seat, when the call came.

He said: “They called, me, I was walking along Salisbury Crags, it was very picturesque. Actually, it was a good moment. They're like, ‘You're through to the live quarterfinals’. But I couldn’t hear them.”

He said he had hoped he would make it through, but had not been confident.

“I had a really good audition, the crowd loved it, he said. But you put it on TV, you don't know how the audience will receive it, you don't know whether they think it's a fix.”

He was told he was the first freestyle rapper ever to appear on the show in its 20 year history.

“I was improvising my whole audition, and they were like: ‘You sure you want to do that?’ I said, ‘no, I’ll make it up. They told me, ‘This could end terribly.’

“Fortunately, it went perfectly. It just made for good television. So I've got to go back now and do it again and try not to mess up, which is the constant fear. So, I consider Edinburgh as training. I do 25 shows, six or seven raps a show.”

He is flying to LA to film the show as soon as the Fringe is over. He hopes the show will give a boost to his career in the US.

“Now, I finish my run here on the last day of the Fringe, and then I go on a plane to LA to do my next round,” he said.

However, he is reticent to tell his Fringe audiences about his appearance on the show - something he says he would not do if he was touring in the US.

“If I walk out and I'm like, ‘Hey guys, I'm on America's Got Talent’, I think people are going look around and go, ‘Well, why are you in a half empty Portacabin in Edinburgh? They're not going to go for that.

“America is different. My first three jokes in any British comedy club would be to make fun of how I look, whereas in America, I tried that once and someone in the front went, ‘No, we believe in you’. It’s the worst.”

Chris Turner is at Underbelly George Square at 5.15pm.