Party Games

Beloved improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? spawned both British and American versions and ran from 1988 to 2007. This year, it's enjoying a revival on US network The CW, and two of its core performers are still going strong. Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood were involved with the show almost from the beginning; they've been mates for more than 20 years and doing their own two-man live improv comedy show for a decade. Sherwood says, however, that doesn't mean they're not out to get each other.

“We have a level of trust from having done so many episodes of Whose Line? together,” the US-based comedian says, “and from touring our live show. We've been through the trenches together. But we are still constantly trying to trip each other up. Even though we trust each other, we're still trying to throw snowballs at each other.”

Sherwood says that at any given moment on stage, as veteran improvisers, both he and Mochrie have three or four good ideas on the go – “With the two of us on stage there's always eight ideas flashing around between our brains – so if I go dry for one moment, he's still got four great ideas over there. It would be really hard for us to completely screw up.” An Evening With Colin And Brad draws from the Whose Line? format, using some of the show's classic games and throwing in some new ones. “Obviously we don't have four improvisers [like in the show], so that limits things, and we don't have a host/moderator who can call the shots,” Sherwood says. “So we've adapted some of the games to use audience members, and we give them some of the control.”

Sherwood says the singing games were always among his favourites because “you have to work at the top of your brain – you have to make sense, and rhyme, and be on key,” he says. “I liked it because it was like doing the hardest crossword puzzle.” In his most viewed online video, he's doing exactly that in front of one of the world's most high-pressure crowds. When he and Mochrie co-hosted the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2007, Sherwood's improvised rap with George W Bush's deputy chief of staff Karl Rove – aka 'MC Rove' – went viral. “I saw where Karl Rove was sitting and I planned to ask him to be on stage, but I never thought he'd say yes,” Sherwood says. “[CNN reporter] Wolf Blitzer was sitting at the same table so I thought, 'When Karl says no, I will grab Blitzer and drag him up to do a rap' – but Karl Rove said yes. The rest was surreal political comedy. The whole place was full of press corps and muckity-mucks and I thought no one who everyone knew would come up on with us. The morning after, we got invited to the White House to meet the President. It was a surreal weekend, where two goofy boys who do fart jokes ended up in the Oval Office.”