Improv opens the Summer Festival

Stage

Improv opens the Summer Festival

Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie kick off the main-stage performances of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival on Friday.

Pair of stars from 'Whose Line is it Anyway?' show skills at the Power Center

BY ROGER LELIEVRE

News Arts Writer

Colin Mochrie sounded deliberately puzzled about the status of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” the TV comedy which until recently aired Thursday nights on ABC.

“We haven’t taped in three years - we’re thinking we’re canceled,” said Mochrie by phone from his Toronto home. “We always got royally clobbered in the ratings because we were up against ‘Friends’ and ‘Survivor,’ which apparently were quite popular,” he dead-panned when asked about the show, which was hosted by comic Drew Carey.

Mochrie - along with fellow “Whose Line” cast member Brad Sherwood - will bring a night of improv-style comedy to Power Center Friday for two performances as the opening main-stage act of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. (Free Top of the Park shows also begin Friday; see Page 8.)

Armed with only their sharply honed wit, the pair will take suggestions from the audience and turn them into funny and original scenes.

Anyone who has seen “Whose Line is it Anyway?” on television has a pretty good idea of what the Ann Arbor date will involve.

“It’s pretty much what you see on ‘Whose Line’; the difference is there’s only Brad and I and we have to act as hosts and improvisers,” explained Mochrie. “I would say it’s even more audience-interactive than ‘Whose Line’ - we get suggestions from the audience to start every scene and about 80 percent of the scene we have audience members on stage with us.”

Although “Whose Line” has vanished from ABC’s primetime lineup, the show can be seen almost nightly on ABC Family (Comcast Channel 53). Mochrie, a Canadian who was born in Scotland, is on every episode, his tall, skinny frame and bemused expression making his a familiar face.

About that look of bemusement - “I get a lot of chances to use it... There are times where I think ‘what the hell just happened?,” Mochrie said.

Viewers may also remember Sherwood from the sketch comedy series “The Newz.” He was also a regular for three seasons on the British version of “Whose Line.”

Regular viewers of the show know it often has a musical component, and the Ann Arbor show will, too, after a fashion.

“We don’t have an accompanist,” said Mochrie, “(but) Brad does a rap - he has a track on a CD, and he gets someone from the audience to do a rap with him. Usually the person we get up is in their 60s and doesn’t have a big rap reference.... The beauty of our show is you don’t have to know anything to enjoy it.”

Although improv can sometimes veer into the blue zone, Mochrie, an alumnus of Chicago’s famous Second City comedy team, promised a family-friendly show.

“Because we have such a wide demographic, we keep it fairly clean. If it does get a little risque, it’s ‘Benny Hill’ risque. We try to keep language down. It’s very rare when we swear.

“Of course having said that, our show in Ann Arbor will probably be a ‘Soprano’-fest,” Mochrie said, referring to the cable TV hit that is peppered with foul language:

Mochrie said he doesn’t panic when faced with a particularly challenging improv setup.

“Part of improv is just jumping into it and hoping it works out. I’ve always been surrounded by great improvisers... Working with Brad I have total trust that if I am not at my best he’s going to jump in and save me. I actually can’t think of a time when either one of us has been stuck.”

Part of the fun of improv, besides to not knowing what’s coming next, is that skilled practitioners make the art look easy - maybe too easy.

“One of the first questions we always get is ‘is it really improvised?’ I think that’s the reason people ask. We do seem fairly relaxed and it does seem to come naturally to us. People are always looking for a trick.

“It’s our one skill; please let us have it,” he laughed.

Despite his antics on stage, Mochrie said he’s basically an introvert. “I was very shy. We moved a lot when I was a child and I tended to be a bit of a loner.

“Professionally I was influenced by anyone who made people laugh. Everyone from Chaplin and Keaton to the Marx brothers, Jack Benny, Monty Python (especially John Cleese), Woody Allen and early Bob Hope movies. All of those people influenced me in some way.”

Mochrie said “Whose Line” was started in England as a radio show by producer Dan Patterson, who was introduced toimprovisational comedy while he was at school in the Unitedfor eight years, said Mochrie.

“During that time Dan had always wanted to do an American version, mainly because there is more money there. He was shopping it around, and he ended up meeting (show host) Drew Carey. Without Drew I don’t think this would have gotten produced. But because he was so hot at ABC they just kind of jumped on it. He gave us all a career.”

Mochrie said the fame afforded by “Who’s Line” has afforded him and the other cast members a certain notoriety. “It’s nice we manage to get some sort of recognition out of it and are able to parlay it into some kind of a career,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dan Izzo, owner of the Improv Inferno comedy club in downtown Ann Arbor, said “Whose Line is it Anyway?” helped open the doors for places like his.

“(‘Whose Line’) showed people the fundamentals of what improv is all about,” Izzo said. “It gave us a bit of an entree into the market. You can say ‘it’s like ‘Whose Line” and everybody knows what you mean. It’s helped make improv an understandable art form.”

Roger LeLievre can be reached at (734) 994-6848 or by e-mail at rlelievre@annarbornews.com.

PREVIEW
Colin Mochrie, Brad Sherwood

Who: Duo from the TV show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" presented by the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.

What: An evening of improvisational comedy.

Where: Power Center, 121 Fletcher St.

When: 7 and 9:30 p.m. Friday.

How much: $20-$48.

Information: (734) 764-2538 or annarborsummerfestival.org