Colin Mochrie is an insanely polite man. Maybe it's because he's Canadian, but his soft voice and pleasant demeanor immediately puts you at ease. You want to hear what he has to say, mostly because there's a really good chance it's going to be hilarious, insightful, or both.
Many words describe him — writer, actor, comedian, husband, friend — but the one everyone knows him best for is Improviser. Might have something to do with the fact he's been part of every incarnation of television's Whose Line Is It Anyway?
The show started in the UK (1988-1999), came to the US with Drew Carey (that ended in 2007), and now has a third incarnation (entering its fourth season the CW)with host Aisha Tyler.
“Show is like a zombie,” Mochrie says. “You can't kill it.”
But television isn't the only place where Mochrie performs: For the past 13 years, he's toured with Brad Sherwood as part of Two Man Group, a show, he's proud to say, that is completely family-friendly. “If things are tanking, that's when the swearing happens,” he laughs.
Tanking, of course, is always an option. Since nothing is scripted and all cues are taken from the audience, in improv the best you can do is rely on your partner (or team) and trust they can help get you out. But sometimes there's just no saving it. This, of course, is when you rely on the audience to have a short memory.
“You fight 'til the bitter end, and there are times you can pull yourself out and that's great and if not then you just move on to the next thing and forget about that," he says. "You want to be the best you can and have every scene work but it just doesn't happen that way sometimes, for whatever reason the scene doesn't click, but you have the next scene to get [the audience] back on your side.”
That may be a fundamental difference between stand-up and improv crowds.
“When an audience goes to see a stand-up, they sort of sit back and say “show us what you got,”” Mochrie says. “Whereas with improv they are a little more invested in the show because we have nothing and they are supplying all the ideas. They want us to succeed, they want to see us in trouble, but they want us to get out eventually. Whereas in stand-up, if you go down they smell blood and attack.”
He pauses, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “Even when it doesn't go well, you've never felt more alive.”
Listening to him talk about his obvious love of improv, it's easy to see how it could, in theory, work as therapy. Or at least self-help program. As Mochrie explains, “Improv goes against everything we do in real life. You're supposed to listen, you're supposed to accept people's ideas and build on them.”
“The hardest thing for people to learn is to have that confidence in the people you are working with and in yourself to just go with an idea,” he continues. “There is nothing worse then when you go out to do a scene and somebody gets their idea out first. You have to immediately drop whatever you were going to do and support that idea to your fullest being. And that's hard for a lot of people to do.”
Hard as that may be, it doesn't stop it from being inspiring. Not unlike the seeing the Ramones in their early days, television and the internet have created a whole new resurgence for improv.
“Before Whose Line… there wasn't a lot of improv on television, aside from Second City and groups like that. The success of Whose Line… got improv out there and people could see what you can do with it," he says. "So many times when we're touring, people have come up and said Whose Line… got us into improv, we started there own group, and it great.”
And to cement that DIY attitude, Mochrie reminds us of one simple thing: “All you need are some friends and a room and you can do a show.”
It does not, however, diminish other forms of comedy, stand-up in particular.
“The people who do stand-up well do it because they have something to say and they have a unique point of view. They can get their point across and do it in a funny way. We never do anything really that's current affair or politically involved in any way. We're sort of the goofy younger brother in comedy.”
When asked if he's ever done stand-up, Mochrie's answer is instantaneous. “God no. I don't know they do it. If I'm dying on stage, I'm going down with friends.”
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2016.