Hello Marina, so where are you & your sister from & where ya at, geographically speaking?
MARINA : I live in LANDAN! Me and my sister live by Ladbroke Grove in a flat together. People say ‘is that hard living together and working together?’ And the answer is no… its very convenient.

You graduated from the prestigious Theatre and Clown school, Ecole Philippe Gaulier, last year. How did you find your studies?
MADDY : Studying for two years at that school was without a doubt the strangest but best thing i could have ever done in my life so far. The way Philippe teaches you comedy and theatre is completely original, painful but can be absolutely beautiful. He doesn’t hold back on what he thinks unless he is really quite impressed. And impressed at his standards is very high. You go through total crisis all for that one moment where he says ‘Bon… it was ok’ which is enough to celebrate for 3 days straight. He taught us that within all theatre is a game. It is about impulse and play and being completely in that moment. This is something that I have in mind in every performance I do now. The biggest lesson you can learn there is how to fail, how to take massive risks on stage and how to have to confidence to lose your ego to try and be vulnerable on stage. The more you show that side of yourself the funnier you become. I had some serious ups and downs at the school! I could go on forever about it but I think my greatest moment was in the characters module when i failed and failed again but refused to give up so changed costumes 4 times until i landed on a completely insane american prom queen called Sandy Mayonnaise to which Philippe said “Bon.. this character is good” I almost died.

You have performed in three films coming out the end of this year, can you tell us about them?
MARINA : Yes one is called ‘Breathe’ in which I play a woman called Pamela who doesn’t know if she should marry her partner because he’s ugly. For reference I eat cake in the scene. The other I’m an alien who fists a punk up the a-hole to split into my male identical twin. This is called ‘How to talk to girls at parties.’ it is not a porno. The other was a Shakespeare ‘A Caribbean dream.’ I was playing Hermia and it was filmed in Barbados. Scary because it was my first ever professional experience but there were turtles so I was ok.

Why comedy, what is it about being funny in front of other people that makes you tick?
MADDY : I started performing when i was 11, but for some reason was ALWAYS cast as the jester, joker, idiot characters, once i was cast as a girl who just starred at a wall and drooled.. Typecasted at a young age i guess, but it definitely came from my enjoyment of playing those characters. Doing live comedy is completely addictive. Its the fact that anything could happen at any time, you are showing a side of yourself that you wouldn’t ever do anywhere else in front of an audience and its your job to make them laugh! And when it works there is absolutely nothing like it.

What is the creative process behind writing your sketches?
MADDY : We definitely work best when we have an upcoming gig or show. I usually book us into a night and then we make it our mission to do something completely new for it. The pressure makes me work! Me and my sister have been playing silly characters since we were foetuses. We used to constantly play character ping pong in the back of the car and would impersonate everyone we saw.. Nobody was safe. We have a huge list of characters we like playing so we usually write the sketches around them, put them into a world or a situation and go from there!

How funny is Christmas at your house?
MARINA : It’s pretty funny. We have stockings still even though all of us are adults. Last year santa put a fiver in each of our stockings. Best Christmas ever! I once got my mums face and two of our cats faces printed onto individual stuffed pillows for Christmas. She was disturbed and slightly disappointed.

You are bringing SIBLINGs to this year’s Fringe, can you tell us about it?
MARINA : Siblings is about two real life sisters who let go of any flicker of dignity and attractiveness to make the most ridiculous character comedy show, plucked from their inner childhood minds. One drama school graduate and one clown school graduate, one short, one tall, one funny, one not, both absurd performing characters from all over the globe. We want people to leave and disco HARD because they are so pumped and happy after seeing two fools bring destruction to the stage. The audience get to see what Maddy and I create in our very childish, dirty and absurd minds. We’ve found people weeping in the audience or their mouths open in complete shock which is what I love the most. It’s an unpredictable show but always free and funny so it’s a hoot!

How are you finding the Fringe so far?
MADDY : Hectic… Doing a show at 11:30pm everyday does take some getting used to, i havent seen sunlight in a while.. But i love the fringe, for me the greatest thing is being able to see comedy constantly. I have seen some fantastic stuff so far and i will continue on! I come to the fringe every year and this is my third time performing in it so I am a big fringe fan.

How do you two know when you have done a good show, & how do you feel
MADDY : You know you have done a good one when you can feel the audience are totally on your side, when they are with you all the way through and are finding it funny of course! There is a specific feeling you get when you know you have done a good show. You sort of want to fall to your knees and scream YEEEEEESSSSSSSS to the lighting rig and you want to snog everyone you see.

What will you two be doing after the Fringe?
MARINA : I will probably get back to auditioning for acting work but this time with extra SASS because I will have survived a month of the insanity of the Edinburgh Fringe.

You can catch Siblings at the Fringe right now…

Gilded Balloon Teviot until the 28th August (not 23rd) : 23.30