\u201cIt was bonkers,\u201d says Robertson, who recalls the pair digesting the news of their coincidental castings on a rooftop over a bottle of wine. Clive, however, maintains she was \u201cvery unsurprised\u201d they\u2019d both managed to land such high-profile gigs after years of small TV roles and near-breakthroughs (Clive led the Channel 4 OCD drama Pure<\/a> in 2019). \u201cI thought it was pretty inevitable, genuinely.\u201d Whenever Robertson fretted about their professional futures, Clive would assure her it was \u201chappening, baby! Then, thank God, it did.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite having significantly upped their respective profiles, Clive and Robertson, both 33, are not abandoning their lo-fi sketch roots. This year, under their joint moniker Britney, they\u2019re taking a new show to the Edinburgh fringe (well, two actually: they\u2019ll spend their lunchtimes acting in a Robertson-penned play called Jitters, in which Clive plays her comedy partner\u2019s stepmum-to-be, and their evenings performing their latest sketch show Holy Mackerel!).<\/p>\n Board silly \u2026 Charly Clive in Rooster. Photograph: Katrina Marcinowski\/Warner Bros<\/p>\n It\u2019s June when we meet for lunch in an east London restaurant, but the duo are in no rush to prepare for the festival: I saw a preview of Holy Mackerel! in February and it was pretty much flawless. There\u2019s clearly a level of nerdy perfectionism involved in a Britney production; Clive describes their shows as \u201cmeticulously prepared \u2013 so it\u2019s even sadder when it\u2019s not funny!\u201d.<\/p>\n That won\u2019t be an issue: Clive and Robertson have an incredible knack for finding hilarity in unexpected places. Their last Edinburgh show, 2022\u2019s Friends and Nothing More, managed to extract an impressive number of laughs from a banal Stephen King quote. This time around, they\u2019ve transformed an inadvertently weird headline from the Guardian\u2019s TV section into one of the funniest sketches I\u2019ve seen in years. I don\u2019t want to give too much away, but the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer both feature.<\/p>\n The pair clearly keep a lookout for jokes hidden in plain sight. \u201cDo you know what\u2019s funny about that menu?\u201d Clive observes after we order. \u201cIt said: house trout. Like, house red, house white, house trout. That will be our new sketch \u2013 you can find inspiration anywhere!\u201d Occasionally, however, the pair\u2019s references can be a little too niche. They are considering dropping a sketch about B*Witched\u2019s 1998 chart-topper C\u2019est la Vie. Older audiences don\u2019t get it, neither do younger ones: previewing it to a nonplussed gen Z crowd recently \u201cwas gutting\u201d, says Robertson. Both agree that in an ideal world they\u2019d perform solely to millennial women. The intended vibe of a Britney show is: \u201cI don\u2019t need to worry about the state of the world, I can sit down and be taken care of by two year-aboves, who are gonna be nice to us for one hour,\u201d says Clive.<\/p>\n Parental guidance \u2026 Ellen Robertson with Rachel Weisz in Vladimir. Photograph: Netflix<\/p>\n The pair first bonded at their Oxfordshire all-girls school in year nine, when they found themselves sitting together on a coach to the first world war battlefields of Ypres. They had never spoken before: Clive, who was bullied at school for \u201cbeing gay\u201d due to her cropped hairstyle (an attempt to get rid of recurring nits; she is straight), thought: \u201cEllen was very cool, she had really nice hair and boyfriends \u2013 which is so funny because she\u2019s the gayest woman in town.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time they arrived at their destination, they were firm friends \u2013 \u201claughing our heads off around Ypres\u201d. Back at school, they\u2019d \u201cjust walk around doing funny voices to each other\u201d at lunchtime. What did their classmates think of their comedy stylings? \u201cIt\u2019s hard to know. I think they were like: well, those guys are weird,\u201d says Robertson. Clive has a characteristically self-confident take: \u201cI think they thought we were funny. We were a bit ahead of our time \u2013 I think people were jealous!\u201d<\/p>\n Robertson went on to Cambridge, where she performed with the Footlights, while Clive studied drama in New York. After graduating, they began entertaining the idea of taking a sketch show to the fringe. Then Clive was diagnosed with a brain tumour.<\/p>\n Robertson suggested they base the show on the diagnosis because Clive was \u201cbeing so funny about it\u201d, thinking it would also be a way to provide her friend with some positive memories of an awful year. \u201cAnd I said: absolutely not,\u201d says Clive. Eventually, she changed her mind; the resulting show, titled Britney<\/a> \u2013 also the nickname they\u2019d given Clive\u2019s tumour to give it a glamorous spin \u2013 was a word-of-mouth hit.<\/p>\n Oops, they did it again \u2026 Britney. Photograph: Rebecca Need-Menear<\/p>\n The following year, after initial surgery, Clive\u2019s tumour began growing again, meaning that she needed radiotherapy. The pair decided it was a good excuse to revive Britney, the show (now also the name of their double act), \u201cslightly more lucratively\u201d in London. It won the attention of the BBC, which adapted it into a 2021 pilot<\/a> co-starring My Parents Are Aliens\u2019 Tony Gardner, an early champion of the Edinburgh show. Making the pilot was \u201cthe most fun I\u2019ve ever had\u201d, says Robertson. \u201cWe obviously really hoped they\u2019d want it for a series. And then they didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The rejection was \u201ctricky and strange\u201d, partly because of the deeply personal subject matter and partly because of all the gruelling promotion they\u2019d done. \u201cWe had interview after interview with someone saying: so just tell us again about the worst period of your life,\u201d says Clive. Once they\u2019d accepted it was going no further, \u201cwe were like OK. We did everything the way we wanted to do it. That goes to bed now.\u201d<\/p>\n UK TV\u2019s loss was ultimately the US\u2019s gain. Why do they think so many British actors are landing the sorts of roles in the US that have eluded them here? \u201cAmericans seem more interested in us for whatever reason \u2026 are we cheaper?\u201d wonders Robertson.<\/p>\n Fringe concern \u2026 Britney: Friends and Nothing More at Edinburgh in 2022. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost definitely \u2013 God, I\u2019d do it for free. Don\u2019t print that,\u201d jokes Clive. Another possibility is the risk-averse nature of homegrown TV. While UK broadcasters are still trying to find the next Fleabag, in the US \u201cthey\u2019re like: \u2018How can we wow everybody again with something as successful as Fleabag, but that isn\u2019t Fleabag?\u2019\u201d says Clive.<\/p>\n Thanks to Vladimir and the already recommissioned Rooster \u2013 plus various other acting projects (Clive recently played Sally Phillips\u2019s sister in Relics<\/a> at the Lyric Hammersmith; Robertson will appear in Caryl Churchill\u2019s Cloud 9<\/a> at the National Theatre in London from November) \u2013 Britney is now more of a passion project than something the pair are relying on for a career breakthrough. They don\u2019t covet online clout \u2013 in fact, they don\u2019t share any sketches on social media: Robertson thinks pumping out skits for Instagram would feel like \u201cdrudgery\u201d. They aren\u2019t particularly bothered about critical success, either. Some comedians have told them a positive review in a broadsheet can inflate the average age of the crowd \u201cby, like, 40 years\u201d \u2013 a disaster for the B*Witched material.<\/p>\n Instead, they want to ensure Britney always feels like a treat. \u201cBecause it\u2019s not the only thing we do, I think we\u2019re allowed for it to be a really special thing for us,\u201d says Clive.<\/p>\n \u201cWorking on a strange little hour of comedy is our dream,\u201d agrees Robertson. Twenty years on, the unadulterated joy of those year nine lunch breaks is clearly still going strong.<\/p>\n Holy Mackerel!<\/a> is at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, to 21 August; Jitters<\/a> is at Old Lab at Summerhall, 6 to 30 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has always been a lot of overlap in the lives of Charly Clive and Ellen Robertson. 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