Output Stream of Consciousness

We went down to the Jack Singer on Sunday to see the Just For Laughs tour of Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood.

They are, not unexpectedly, taking the Whose Line Is It Anyway? formula on the road with comedy improv, taking suggestions or grabbing themes from some form of randomization, like flipping through a phone book.

I've seen the Whose Line crew on tour and the mixed Whose Line/Drew Carey crew as well, so I was pleased that with just the two of them ("where's Ryan?", someone shouted... "well, where's your more successful older brother?", mused Brad), the formula works quite well. Plus, no dang hoedowns.

The game where they get one-liner suggestions on paper from the first several rows of the audience (I could only get tickets up on the balcony, dangit!) and spread them around on stage worked much better when the theme changed to the naughty (and the one-liners seemed to be appropriate several times in a row... "my anteater has a runny nose" took on an entirely new meaning... or is it the same old one?). Brad got two blank cards throughout the show... "She said *uncrumple*... NOTHING!?" and sounded so beleaguered by these evil Calgarians.

One game I hadn't seen before was the confess-to-a-crime game, where Colin and the audience concoct a mighty silly crime that Brad has to confess to verbatim. The crime this time was the Brad was to have stolen... something (dang, the one part I don't remember - maybe Dena will remember this bit) and snatched the body of John A. MacDonald using a pickle in Manyberries at Kiprusoff's House of Flame Juggling with silly putty.

Colin of course gives somewhat silly hints, in a couple of cases quite generous (Brad didn't know Kiprusoff - he shot back in his defense, "I only know the names of goalies that are still in the playoffs!"), and it was most fun watching Brad struggle as the string of the confession got longer, since he had to repeat the whole thing, as I said, verbatim :)

The rapid-fire progression of word games, Questions Only, One-Syllable (Per Word) Sentences, Word Substitution, etc. was most enjoyable. I noticed this with some of the previous tours... they are actually often better at these games live than they were on television. More experience, sure, but is that all?

They brought back the disturbing mouse trap improv. With just the two of them, it was at once painful to watch and impossible to stop laughing, since they were, of course, doing many things in their power to cause each other pain. Assistants hold a rope to prevent them falling off stage, since Brad and Colin are blindfolded at this point. At one point, they were both forward, and touching the rope, and Colin, near as I could tell, had a mouse trap armed and slid it along the rope to Brad until Brad touched it (I don't know if it went off, but that sure escalated things). Colin managed one toss of a mousetrap to snap on Brad's untucked shirt as well. All the while improving a scene.

The song at the end capped it off nicely, and was woven through with the events, heckles, blank cards and one-liners of the evening.

Most enjoyable :)