Until a few days before interviewing Carine and Frances Gilbert, I had only encountered The Gilbert Twins occasionally on social media. Then I saw the trailer for their new musical Under the Influence, started doing my research, and made the dangerous decision to scroll back to the beginning of their account.

Several hours later, my sides aching from the laughter, I had watched an awful lot of two identical women dancing around in hoodies, singing, winding each other up, and making brilliantly stupid videos during lockdown (and beyond). What started in 2020 grew extraordinarily quickly and The Gilbert Twins now have more than three million followers across social media, but performing was part of their lives long before TikTok. The Canadian-British sisters grew up in Toronto, trained together at Guildford School of Acting, and originally expected to pursue separate careers in musical theatre.

Under the Influence brings those two worlds together. Written by Carine and Frances, with lyrics and music from their former GSA classmate Shona Maule, the musical puts the twins into couples therapy and explores what happens when your sister is also your best friend, flatmate, colleague, creative partner, and the other half of the public identity that pays your bills. After a successful Edinburgh Fringe run, it is now playing at London’s King’s Head Theatre.

I interviewed Carine and Frances the day before I saw it, and the following night discovered a show that was funny, clever, wonderfully silly, and much more moving than I had expected. I laughed a lot, cried during a beautiful solo from Frances, and was hugely impressed by both of them as actors as well as comedians and singers. But their performing journey began long before The Gilbert Twins became an online phenomenon.

Growing up in Toronto, were you always putting on shows and making each other laugh? What first got you interested in performing?

Carine: We started performing from a really young age. We started dancing when we were about five and did dance competitions. We have an older sister as well, which is important because it was an extra cast member in the house. The three of us were always dancing, coming up with dances, and making silly little videos.

Then we started doing theatre and musical theatre when we were a bit older, maybe ten or twelve. The first show we did was Grease, and Frances was Sandy.

Frances: I was cast as Sandy because I was the more talented twin.

Carine: Whoa, whoa, whoa. It was a rough year for me, okay? My identical twin got cast as Sandy and I got cast as Cha Cha.

That was my villain arc. I was like, we have the same genes. I can’t be a lesser part. I should be able to sing just as well. We have the same larynx!

So I worked my arse off the next year, and then we did Tom Sawyer. I got cast as Tom and she got cast as Becky, who is the love interest.

Frances: It was a kids’ show, so we thought, how bad could it be? Then we had to sing a love song to each other.

We always joke about the fact that we don’t like to touch. We were trying to work out where that came from, and we thought it might be that musical where we had to sing a love song to each other.

Carine: Our friends and family had a great time. The way they were laughing in the audience! Would I do it again? Not sure. Am I glad it happened? Yes.

You both eventually trained in musical theatre at GSA. Why did you come all the way from Canada to Guildford?

Frances: Our dad is British. When we told him we wanted to pursue musical theatre, we were looking at colleges in Canada, and he was basically like, “You can’t do that. You have to go to where theatre was born.”

We have dual citizenship and family here, so that made moving across the world easier. GSA is also one of the top drama schools, so when we both got in, it was a no-brainer.

Although, disclaimer, I did try to convince her not to go.

Carine: She did.

Frances: I thought this was going to be my chance to have my own independence. Then I found out she wanted to go to GSA as well, and I was like, “I really feel like you love TV and film, though. Are you sure?”

Carine: What an awful sibling.

Frances: She realised I was gaslighting her, so we ended up both going anyway.

Did you picture yourselves having separate careers at that point, or was there always an idea that you might do something together?

Carine: We definitely saw ourselves doing our own thing. I think it’s a common identical-twin experience. You’re like, I’m my own person. I’m going to do my own thing.

Obviously, if twin things came up, we were happy to do them and use that unique selling point, but we had our own agents and everything. We thought we were going to be individuals.

Frances: In musical theatre, there are some sibling and twin things, but mostly there are individual roles. We never really saw ourselves doing things together.

Throughout school, teachers and other people were always trying to push us together. We were told that being twins was our only unique selling point.

Even in our final year at GSA, we did Pippin and were both cast as the Leading Player. We were so mad.

Carine: But the audience didn’t know there were two of us. At the beginning, we made the entrances long enough that they thought it was one person, then the changes got quicker and quicker. People were going, “What the hell?”

Frances: It ended up being really cool. But throughout drama school, and life in general, we kept trying to push away from this narrative that we had to do things together. Eventually, I think we embraced it.

Then the pandemic happens, you start making videos together, and suddenly people really want you as a pair. You reached a million followers within the first year. When did it start to feel like this could actually be a career?

Carine: I don’t think we thought it was going anywhere until we woke up one day with 20,000 followers.

We looked at each other and didn’t actually communicate it, but we instantly locked in. It was like, we’re going to make this a way to make money now.

Before COVID, we were in London working as waitresses and auditioning. We were both really unhappy at the restaurant. So when this happened, we thought, if we can make this our job, we don’t have to go back there and we can still audition and run our own lives.

Our first brand deal was around January 2021, and by the time we moved back to London we were building it into a proper job.

Frances: I think we went full-time around 2022. But the end goal was always to get back on stage and perform.

What’s funny is that fans have come to the show and said, “I didn’t even know you could sing like that.” We’ve been able to sing our whole lives, but it’s a side of us that people following the social media haven’t necessarily seen.

Your early videos exploded really quickly. Was there something particular about that point in social media that made it possible?

Frances: TikTok at that time was the golden age. Everyone was bored and at home, so the content and creativity coming out of people’s brains was unmatched.

Things are so polished and refined now because everybody has developed their skills as content creators. Back then it was green screens and things being a bit janky. I loved it.

When our first TikTok went viral, we went to bed and woke up with 20,000 followers. It was crazy.

Carine: We hit a million within the year. The growth during the pandemic was unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Frances: We actually tried doing singing stuff at first and it got way less engagement. Then the hoodie dances started, and that was what people loved.

Carine and I disagreed about it because I wanted to do more singing, and she was like, “We need to build the following. We need to do the foundation.” So we stuck with the hoodie dancing for a while.

Have you ever said the words, “You were right”?

Frances: Unfortunately, Nick, I’ve had to make that change this year.

Carine: If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have our creative team for the show because she was too scared to ask them.

Frances: That is true. I will admit to it.

Carine, I have to mention your boyfriend Rambod, because he is such a good sport in your videos. I think my favourite is the one where Frances comes in singing about stealing your boyfriend and he starts throwing imaginary bills at her immediately (hilarious). Was he always that willing to get involved?

Frances: He’s so funny because he’ll say, “I don’t want to be in a video,” and then as soon as the camera is on, he completely jumps into action. He’s really good at improvising as well, and he doesn’t even work in performance.

Carine: I don’t think I knew what audio she was going to use in that one.

Frances: I think maybe just me and Rambod knew.

Carine: Yeah, I think she told Rambod and it was a surprise for me. I was like, “Oh my God, not this girl.”

People clearly love you as The Gilbert Twins. Does being successful as a pair make it harder to pursue opportunities separately or take your careers in different directions?

Frances: Absolutely.

Carine: That’s kind of what our show is about. We’ve both had experiences where we got really far in the audition process for acting jobs.

I was in the finals for SIX a couple of years ago, and when I got that far, we were suddenly going, what happens if I book this contract? What happens to The Gilbert Twins?

Frances: You’re simultaneously really happy for your twin because she’s getting to the finals, while inside you’re freaking out and thinking, what am I going to do?

I feel much more relaxed about it now. We have a foundation. If one of us has to go off and do something, the other person can hold the fort. I think we’re more open to our careers doing what they will.

Carine: That being said, it hasn’t actually happened yet, so TBD. We’ll let you know!

You went from playing lovers in a school musical to going to couples therapy together as adults, which is quite a journey. Who suggested therapy, and what was the other one’s reaction?

Frances: Now that you say it that way, maybe the lovers thing was foreshadowing.

I suggested the therapy. We were working together, living together, and spending all of our time together. We were fighting so much that it got to the point where we couldn’t work around it.

We would have a brand deal due that night, have a massive argument, and then need a 20-minute breather because we couldn’t work together.

Carine: It was literally like a sketch. Off camera, we would be fighting, then the camera came on and suddenly we were smiling.

Frances: Eventually we had one big argument, there were tears, and I said, “I don’t know how we can continue working together, or even being friends, if we don’t do something about this.”

There are family therapists, but they were really expensive. Couples therapists were cheaper. There were no twin therapists, so it was basically a financial decision.

Carine: We were at such a dire point that when she suggested it, I was like, fine. I didn’t actually fight her very much on it.

What was the biggest thing you got out of it?

Carine: That I’m always right.

Frances: That wasn’t what I was going to say.

Carine: The therapist basically sided with me on everything. It was amazing. You would have thought I was paying this woman.

Fran had just been through a breakup, so whenever I said something, the therapist would go, “Fran, I think you’re feeling a little sensitive because you’re going through a breakup.”

It was extremely validating for me.

Frances: It was extremely triggering for me.

Eventually, even Carine realised there was a bias. There was one point where she was telling a story and knew she was wrong, and the therapist still sided with her.

Carine: Maybe she fancied me.

Frances: What did genuinely help, although this is going to make Carine sound terrible, was that the therapist explained empathy to her.

Carine: I knew what empathy was. Let’s clear that up.

My definition was that empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Frances: The problem was that she was putting herself in my shoes, but she was still herself in my shoes. So she was still judging the situation as herself rather than actually understanding how I was experiencing it.

Carine: I think a lot of people do that! But reframing empathy helped a lot.

Frances: She turned to me and said, “Oh, I think that’s what you’ve been trying to tell me.”

I was like, yeah. It only took £50 and a therapist to convince you.

Has it changed the way you deal with conflict now?

Frances: Definitely. We can defuse things much more quickly.

Something we say a lot is, “Would you say that to a colleague?”

Because we struggle with boundaries as siblings who also work together. If she does something I don’t like, instead of saying, “Maybe we could look at that again,” I’ll just be horrible about it.

Now she can go, “Would you say that to a colleague?” and I think, you’re right. That’s not fair. Let me say it again.

Carine: I think you can talk to your sibling in the same negative way you sometimes talk to yourself.

How much of what happens in Under the Influence actually happened in therapy?

Carine: The show is based around that setting, but we didn’t actually take much of what happened in therapy and put it into the show.

Frances: It’s pretty fictional.

Carine: There are elements based on truth, but most of the things we talk about in the show happened outside therapy.

Frances: What actually happened in therapy was crazy in its own way. We’d need a different show for that. We’d need longer than an hour.

The songs are such an important part of telling this story. How did you work with Shona Maule to turn something so personal into music?

Carine: It helps that she’s brilliant. We would have the concepts and ideas for the songs and could basically tell her what we were feeling and the style we had in mind.

Frances: I’d say something like, “I’m thinking Jason Robert Brown, 13, this kind of song,” and she’d just understand.

The other benefit is that we went to GSA with Shona. She was on the actor-musician course. Weirdly, we only became friends after university, but she’s known us for nearly ten years.

Our director Georgie Rankcom has also known us that long. They understand us so well that when we’re trying to explain a dynamic or something internal, they really get it. Communication can almost be telepathic.

Carine: There are definitely things in the show that could only be expressed through music.

Fran’s solo is probably the first time she has ever expressed what she says in that song. I don’t think she had ever vocalised it before we wrote it.

Frances: I write songs myself and had always wanted to write something about our relationship, but how are you supposed to fit 28 years into a song?

Writing it with Shona made it much easier because I had somebody to bounce ideas off.

The song is essentially about my personal experience of having a twin and being single while Carine has a partner. It encapsulates something I don’t think I could get out just with words.

I guess when you watch tomorrow, you can either confirm or deny.

Confirmed, was very moving, my eyes got wet.

When audiences leave the show, what would you like them to be thinking about their own relationships?

Carine: In Edinburgh, one of the sweetest things was having siblings and families leave and say, “I’m thinking about my sister who lives somewhere else. This made me miss her.”

We had one sibling duo come out and say, “He’s you, and she’s you.”

I haven’t seen that many sibling stories onstage. Obviously, apologies to the only children of the world, but I think it’s universal for siblings and for anybody who has a very close relationship.

Frances: Even our producers, Zoe and Sophie, see themselves in it, and they’re best friends.

I think the lovely thing about the show is that people come out embracing the good, the bad, and the ugly. We show those really annoying but hilarious parts of having a sibling or a best friend through a comedic lens.

Hopefully, people leave with that warm feeling of, “I have someone in my life that I feel this with.”

That is essentially what we’ve always wanted our social media to do too, just in a different format. It’s been a joy to see that translate onto the stage.

Under the Influence is playing at the King’s Head Theatre until 26 September.

Book tickets at kingsheadtheatre.com

Follow The Gilbert Twins on all the social media via their LinkTree

Words Nick Barr

Featured photograph by Madeleine Penfold 

Production photography by Danny Kaan