Veteran comedians Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood will present an interactive live streaming comedy show Saturday, Aug. 22 as part of Pabst Theater Group's #ReviveLiveMKE Live Stream Series.
To hear it from Colin Mochrie, excelling at improvisational comedy is a means to mastering life.
“The skills are fairly easy and difficult at the same time. In improv, we have to do the things we don't do in real life: listen, accept people's ideas and try to make the other person look good. It’s so easy to say and yet it’s difficult for us to do,” says the veteran improv comic who is scheduled to perform a live stream date with Brian Sherwood on their Stream of Consciousness tour presented by The Pabst Theater Group 8 p.m. Saturday, August 22.
With Mochrie as a constant in the original U.K. and subsequent U.S. iterations of the TV improv competition show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (currently on Amazon Prime) and Sherwood’s involvement in most of the U.S. seasons, they reside at the apex of improv. The distance between performers and audience won’t be changing their extemporaneous format much, either. “The audience is still a big part of the show. Every scene starts with her suggestion and with the technology we have we can actually make it seem as though we’re interacting with audience members,” Mochrie says. The kind of approximation of intimacy of which Mochrie speaks may also dictate a level of decorum for those watching from their home or on-the-go- screens. “We can actually come into their homes, so everyone better wear pants!”
It’s a solid bet that Mochrie and Sherwood will remain fully clothed as they live stream as well. That’s but one factor that keeps their brand of improv a family-friendly alternative in a comedy landscape populated with content less appropriate for an entire family to get some chuckles. About the ease with which he and Sherwood can work without having to do so blue, Mochrie states, “Thirty years of doing “Whose Line,” I think, has really helped us keep things clean. We had to get enough material that we would have a show at the end. Having our words bleeped or doing inappropriate scenarios was counterproductive to what we had to achieve. It’s something we do unconsciously."”
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Non-Political Show
Perhaps more consciously, Mochrie and Sherwood also keep their act free of another source of controversy. “Because at the top of the show we mentioned this is a non-political show,” Mochrie remarks, “we haven’t had any suggestions that deal with COVID or how the government has dealt with it.” Mochrie recalls how he has benefitted from the way his homeland of Canada has dealt with the coronavirus. “Since the lockdown, I have been home longer than I have been in literally decades. It’s been nice to spend time with my wife and daughter and actually enjoy downtime.”
His longtime Canadian residency could be part of what gives him the demeanor of someone not out to rock boats or stir pots. And what with the Great White North’s strong comedy lineage. Mochrie’s Scottish familial roots and his absorption of globally ubiquitous U.S. entertainment, his background looks to have shaped his sensibility regarding humor, too. Or, as he puts it. “I understood British comedy and humor, from Benny Hill to Monty Python, and, of course all the American sitcoms and comedians also inspired me. Then it was all funneled through a Canadian perspective. I’m a comedy mutt.”
Not being purebred has worked in Mochrie’s favor with a career that has gone beyond improv to adjacent gigs including his portrayal of the Nabisco Snack Fairy in a series of TV commercials, scripted TV and movie roles and, as has been the case with four other “Whose Line” cast members, hosting a game show. On being M.C. of “Are You Smarter Than A Canadian Fifth Grader?” he notes, “You have to keep the audience entertained. You have to deal with the contestants, and often, you have the producers talking to you in an earpiece while you're doing all of that. Having a little improv experience certainly helps with that.”
As for his live streaming with Sherwood, the off the cuff hilarity should provide viewer-participants with something most anyone could use these anxiety-prone days, “I think people really want to escape just for a little while.”
Though they’re not likely to get so musical in their Pabst-presented date, here Mochrie and Sherwood are plying their improv acumen with operatic recitative and the threat of injury by a mouse trap:
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