The Two Man Group of Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood flips Red once again when the guys from WHOSE LINE retake the Count Basie stage for another go-round of impishly improv’d interactions.
In an interview that appeared here on redbankgreen some seasons back, improv king Brad Sherwood summed up The Two Man Group — the long-running, high-mileage live comedy show that teams him with fellow make-it-up-as-you-go-along master Colin Mochrie — by telling us, “We have more of a communal, collaborative relationship with the audience than an adversarial one… you’re laughing from a different part of your brain.”
If “different part of your brain” means “seat of your pants,” then you’ll understand exactly where Sherwood (a frequent flyer on various editions of TV’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?) is coming from. The veteran of LA’s Second City troupe met up with Vancouver native Mochrie — himself an alum of the legendary Toronto Second City company, and a permanent fixture/ set furnishing on every Whose Line variation from the BBC to ABC, to Comedy Central and the current CW series — on a local West Coast program. The two have crisscrossed the country with their “full time, part time gig” for more than a decade now — and when they return to the stage of the Count Basie Theatre on Friday, November 7, they’ll be bringing their low-budget/ high-yield unscripted show to the Red Bank audience for an eleventh (maybe more?) annual whistlestop.
Expect such favorite bits from the (apparently un-killable) TV show as “Sitting Standing Bending,” “Helping Hands,” “Scenes from a Hat,” and the Two Man Group’s piece de resistance, the Alphabet Game — performed, as is their wont, blindfolded and barefoot on a stage full of mousetraps.
Although audience members won’t be called upon to tiptoe through the springing traps, there’s a good element of interaction between onlooker and improviser — although as Mochrie is quick to point out, “we don’t want to make them feel uneasy. It’s our job to make us look bad.”
The only potential drawback to all that contact with their adoring public? As Mochrie told redbankgreen, “Every once in a while people forget we’re human beings. They try to pose our 50-year-old bodies in ways that they don’t necessarily bend.”
Reserve tickets to Friday’s 8 pm show ($25.50 – $65) right here.
