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World-famous improv comedians hit River Rock's stage

Get ready for a night of laughter as world famous improv comedians Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood arrive with their two- man improv show, Scared Scriptless , at the River Rock Show Theatre.
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Colin Mochrie (left) and Brad Sherwood are well known worldwide for their performances on the award-winning improvisational comedy TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Both the British and American versions). Photo submitted

Get ready for a night of laughter as world famous improv comedians Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood arrive with their two- man improv show, Scared Scriptless, at the River Rock Show Theatre.

Following the success of ABC’s Emmy-nominated comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Mochrie and Sherwood have teamed up to perform over the last 17 years, with Richmond being the first stop on this year’s world tour.

“It’s always nice to come home,” said Mochrie, who spent his teens and 20s in Vancouver and started his comedy career at the then Old City Stage, before moving to Toronto.

“What we will perform at River Rock will be a live version of ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway.’ A lot of the games will be familiar to fans of the show. We don’t have a script and the content will depend on what the audience gives us.”

Having performed improv for more than 30 years, Mochrie said the beauty is it’s different every night and “you never get bored of it.

“It’s always exciting because you are in front of an audience who is expecting a show and you don’t actually have one at that particular point till they give you the information and we make up the scenes,” he said.

Sherwood is also a veteran comedian who started his improv career in the 1990s and has performed in many different countries.

“There is certain commonality no matter where the audiences are from, and more audiences find similar stuff funny than not,” Sherwood told the Richmond News.

“As the show goes on, you do what you think is funny...generally they’re going to find it funny. And if not, you keep working to get it up to something they are going to find silly.

Sherwood said he has noticed that audiences’ reactions to political jokes now are quite different compared to before.

“I think the world is way more sensitive now to political correctness, and to not laugh at stuff that makes fun of their political view point,” said Sherwood.

“In the olden days, everybody could make fun of presidents, leaders and everyone would laugh because no one took it personally. But now they do.”

When asked what makes a successful improv comedian, Sherwood said it’s a “brain that has to work quickly.

“There are a lot of tricks and tools to become a good improviser you can learn and get better at, but the basic platform are brains that think quickly.”

“You can’t fake that.”

Scared Scriptless runs Sept. 7. For more information, check RiverRock.com.