About
Unashamedly untamed, Shirley & Shirley are madcap duo Joanna Carolan and Pascale Wilson, filtering the world through their fabulously twisted minds. Delivering a deliciously dark feast of character comedy, these two childhood friends have shocked and awed many unsuspecting audiences for almost a decade. They are without a doubt, the best Irish-Palestinian, British-Surinamese duo on the circuit.
As well as six years performing at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, Shirley & Shirley have travelled the length and breadth of Britain bringing joy to its most insalubrious venues including Madame Jojo’s, Soho Theatre, Latitude, Leicester Comedy Festival, The Stand Comedy Club, Bloomsbury Theatre, and Spank at The Southbank.
Their onscreen credits include Sketchorama (BBC Radio 4), BBC Comedy Online, Bad Teeth (Hat Trick Productions), The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (C4), PhoneShop (C4), Marley’s Ghosts (Gold), and Purge of Thrones (Netflix).
Watch Shirley & Shirley: Marriage Material?
British-Chinese, Irish-Palestinian duo Pascale Wilson and Joanna Carolan aka Shirley & Shirley bring their big ol’ baby bumps to the party in this unique brand of pitch-black sketch comedy. With clowning, improv and uproarious characters, including French alcoholic Soupçon Sally and a very morose sex robot, these wickedly silly wonder women will show you their imaginative (if not immaculate) conception.
See Shirley & Shirley Live
Info on Shirley & Shirley’s latest gigs and live shows can be found here.
Bio
Joanna Carolan and Pascale Wilson met in 1993 at Blackheath High School, Pascale going on to train as an actress at The Central School of Speech and Drama and Joanna working as PA to the late Nobel Prize winning playwright Harold Pinter.
Working alongside writer/director Michael Pearce they first performed together in 2008, gigging in London as well as appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe and other comedy festivals including Leicester, Glasgow and at Latitude. In 2009 somewhat ahead of their time and before the rise BBC Three’s online channel, they filmed a number of sketches for BBC online including the characterful creations Oliver and Clementine Brooks, brother and sister Theatre in Education actors, preparing to teach their sex ed lessons.
In 2013 they starred in BBC Radio 4‘s Sketchorama a showcase of acts featuring established and up-and-coming sketch groups performing in front of a live studio audience. As well as performing live, the talented twosome spent time filming their hilarious sketches for Hat Trick Productions youtube channel Bad Teeth. Their 2018 Chorts Award win is testament to their versatility both on stage and on screen. A competition setup to allow creators to make their own shows and test out ideas without spending loads of money or needing a huge production team, Shirley and Shirley were selected from hundreds of entries for their contribution: Tim Tam starring themselves as a pair of disillusioned Aussie girls in London behaving badly.
Self describing their work to Laugh Out London as “A procession of ludicrous yet familiar characters that promise to assault the senses.” we can’t wait to see what the dynamic duo have in store for us next.