Scared Scriptless • Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood Bring Whose Line Is It Anyway? to Midland Center on Oct. 18

Amidst the manufactured confusion propagated in these uncertain and Dystopian times, the perfect antidote awaits to realign one’s sensibilities as Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood prepare to take the stage at Midland Center for the Arts on Sunday, October 18^th for an afternoon of sidesplitting laughter as this dynamic and legendary improv duo present a live and highly interactive tour version of From Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Armed with their lightning-fast wit, Colin and Brad transform audience suggestions into an unpredictable afternoon of unscripted drawn from many of the hilarious games they know and love from Whose Line Is It Anyway? as a few lucky audience members are also invited on stage to join the fun.

In advance of the lunar landing of these two legendary loons, recently The REVIEW had an opportunity to briefly chat with Colin Mochrie – a migratory creature who hails from that craggy, majestic and whiskey-laden land of Scotland, which has spawned many myths besides the Loch Ness Monster.  Mochrie left his birthplace for the Great White North (Canada) and learned his theatrical craft through repeated behavioral rituals at Studio 58 located in the mountain nestled, sparkling jewel of the Northwest, Vancouver, British Columbia.

A hard-working, imaginative mammal, Colin used his chameleon-like skills to blend in with others of his ilk, never being noticed, until noted anthropologists Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson discovered him at the Toronto Second City. Moving him to the Whose Line is it Anyway Institute in historical and damp London, England, Patterson and Leveson slowly groomed Colin till he became an international sensation. Working with Drew Carey at the U.S.-based institute of the same name, only increased interest in this reclusive beast.

What follows are fragments of our exchange.

REVIEW: Let’s start at the beginning. In researching for this interview, I see you debated between pursuing show business or marine biology.  Do you ever look back at your decades-long career and find parallels between navigating an unpredictable ocean and navigating an unpredictable improv scene?

Mochrie:  I never really thought about it, but now that you mention it both experiences can place you in a position where you’re treading in deep and murky water. When you look at it, the parallels terrifyingly accurate. In marine biology you look out at a vast, deep, dark void, you plunge right in, and you have absolutely no idea what kind of bizarre creature is going to swim out of the murky depths to bite you. That is a Tuesday night taping of Whose Line in a nutshell! You are diving into the unknown with nothing but your partner and your wits. The main difference is that in the ocean, the things trying to kill you are doing it for survival.

REVIEW: Between touring Whose Line formats and your work with Hyprov (Improv under hypnosis), you've pushed the boundaries of the medium. What has decades of Improv taught you about human psychology and how the brain processes panic?"

Mochrie: What I’ve learned from both hypnosis and regular improv is that panic is just your ego trying to protect you from failing. When a prompt drops and your brain screams, your natural instinct is to freeze or fight it. But decades on stage have taught me that if you just accept the panic, breathe, and realize that a mistake isn't going to actually kill you, your subconscious will automatically hand you an answer. The other thing is how common it is for people to say ‘No’ to something. Under hypnosis one disconnects the part of the brain responsible for self-criticism and fear of looking foolish.

REVIEW: You have a legacy of over 30-years working in Improv. Looking back how do feel the show’s comedic style has evolved over the decades?

Mochrie: "It has evolved quite a bit, mostly mirroring how television itself has changed. The British version  was much more deadpan, slightly more intellectual, and a bit gritty. We were doing improv in a studio in London, and it felt very avant-garde at the time .When we moved over to the Drew Carey era on ABC, American network television demanded a huge injection of energy. The show became much brighter, faster, louder, and highly physical. Then, by the time we reached the Aisha Tyler revival, pop culture had sped up significantly.  Audiences now have rapid-fire attention spans shaped by the internet, so the pacing became tighter, the guest stars became a huge element, and the comedy had to hit instantly. But underneath all the changing formats, the core engine has remained identical: four people standing on an empty stage trying to make each other laugh.

REVIEW: Having performed across Canada, the US, and internationally, do you find you have to adjust your comedic instincts or references depending upon the city you're touring through?

Mochrie: Good physical comedy and universal human absurdities play just as well in London as they do in Vancouver or Las Vegas. The only place we were every worried about was India, but that experienced also proved a commonality in terms of the triggers that make people laugh. The Internet also has a lot to do with that in the sense that people from different cultures are connected and exposed to one another in ways they never were decades ago.

REVIEW:  Every improviser has moments where a joke lands with total silence. What goes through your head in that split second, and how do you turn a failed joke into a win?

Mochrie: Personally, my favorite tactic is to look directly at the audience and blame them!  Or I will have my character actively stop the scene to apologize for how dreadful the line was. Audiences love seeing the wheels come off the wagon. They don't expect perfection from an unscripted show; they just want to see how gracefully you can scramble out of the ditch you just drove into.

Because we only had nine-minutes to conduct our interview, we couldn’t probe these topics any deeper; however, one thing is certain -  this show promises to be a wild rollercoaster ride of hilarity, where two improv legends prove they are still the best in the business. Every show is a unique improv experience filled with nonstop laughs.

And if you’ve seern them before, remember no two shows are ever the same.

Tickets for the ‘From Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ Tour are on sale now. Ticket prices start at $39. Secure your tickets online at midlandcenter.org, by calling 989-631-8250, or by visiting the Ticket Office. For more information, visit midlandcenter.org/whoseline.