Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie found themselves in an unusual predicament the last time they performed in Tucson.
The improv veterans from the British-born television show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” were playing one of the exhibition halls at the Tucson Convention Center in 2007, at the same time as a Native American arts & crafts show.
“We had a bunch of booths around us selling blankets and art work, pottery, God’s eyes,” Sherwood said in an interview from his Las Vegas home. “We had no idea it would be like that until we got there. We thought, ‘If you guys could stop selling during our actual show, that would be awesome.’”
Sherwood and Mochrie will receive more comfortable surroundings this Saturday, when the duo brings its improv set to the Fox Tucson Theatre.
The performance will be laid out much like an episode of “Whose Line,” where the two receive suggestions from the crowd and then use those suggestions in a series of games played throughout the evening.
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Both comedians have years of experience in the field. In January, they will begin taping for a new season of the latest incarnation of “Whose Line,” which now airs on The CW.
You and Colin have been doing a live improv show for more than a decade. Do you two still get on well? “We get along really well. He is so mellow. I usually handle the nuts and bolts of dealing with the crew and the soundchecks at performances. He just shows up and looks pretty.”
Do you keep in touch with one another when not on the road? “We have actually gone on vacation with our wives together. My wife and his wife are very good friends. When we go on fun trips, sometimes we take them. The last time we did a tour in Australia, they came along with us.”
You make a lot of topical jokes on your Twitter feed. Are your improv shows topical? “No. If there is stuff going on in pop culture, or some celebrity has made a fool of himself, we might mention their name as a joke. But we don’t generally cover topics from the news or that are politically motivated.
“We take our suggestions from the audience. We ask about occupations, things they love. It tends to be more basic, as opposed to what is going on with immigration reform.
“The world is so polarized now, anytime you make a joke like that, you are going to get half the people laughing and the other half jeering.”
How do you handle people who throw out sexual or risqué suggestions? “We don’t take those. It happens at every show. We’ll ask for an occupation and someone will yell out ‘proctologist’ or ‘gynecologist.’ We ignore those people and choose something a little more creative.”
Are there any suggestions that you tend to choose over and over again? “Not so much. Colin and I are always trying to change the way we ask for suggestions so we don’t get the same thing all the time.
“We want to shake up the way we get the audience to think. We don’t want to do a scene about a fireman 20 times in a row. That is not fun for us or for the people watching.”
