Review | ‘Asking for Trouble’ with ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ Comedians Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood
Agile Improv Duo Entertains — with a Little Help from Their Santa Barbara Friends
No matter how familiar the framework, improv shows are hard to predict. Saturday’s evening at the Marjorie Luke Theatre with two of the stars of the comedy TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? — Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood — was a rollercoaster that vacillated between “pretty funny” and “pretty damn funny,” which is pretty much all you could ask from an early comedy night in an alcohol-free venue. (For out-of-towners reading this: The impressively beautiful Luke Theatre is located at Santa Barbara Junior High, hence the lack of comedy-enhancing refreshments.)
The show’s format relies on a series of audience participation games, which means that, as Sherwood explained, “every time we do this, it is completely different because we rely on suggestions from you.” In addition, before taking audience suggestions, he warned us that this was a “political-free zone,” which was met with cheers. “We want you to get away from all of that crap, and after the show, you can go out and hate 49 percent of the country again,” said Sherwood.
In that spirit, the games began. One of the funniest running gags of the evening of was spotlighting a small business owner from the audience — neon sculpture artist Rod Lathim, who owns Lightworks, and happens to be a longtime Luke Theatre board member and a friend of mine and many others in the audience. The Mad Libs version of comedy sketches was next, with seven audience members lined up to give the comedians prompts to incorporate into their storytelling.
One of my favorite segments of the night involved serenading a woman named Tessa, who was chosen from the audience and did NOT volunteer to be up there, causing some comedic discomfort for her and some giggles for the audience as the comedians alternated lines about her life, then words, then tried to sing in unison while serenading her onstage with the details of her life.
“Brad and I have been together for over 22 years,” said Mochrie, who was familiar from his roles in both the American and British versions of the Whose Line Is It Anyway? TV series. Their comfort level with each other really shows in their ability to riff back and forth pretty seamlessly, no matter what the topic.
They had a clever bit where they learned a bit more about Santa Barbara. “It really should be known as the home of the Egg McMuffin rather than the American Riviera,” was his comment after getting some audience feedback about our town (including Marjorie Luke and the theater ghosts, weather, beach, mountains, State Street, etc.). They then quickly rolled out a few song verses based on people’s descriptions of Santa Barbara.
So much of what they do is music or music-adjacent sing-songy verse, requiring quick thinking on their feet, as well as musical talent. All in all, it was quite entertaining and impressive.
