It’s been awhile since Brad Sherwood last made his way to Beverly with his battery mate, Colin Mochrie, to deliver some major league improv comedy — but the duo is back in the Commonwealth this weekend, and as scriptless as ever.
Bringing their “Scared Scriptless” tour to The Cabot on Saturday night (March 23), the Whose Line Is It Anyway? alums have a setlist of sorts they’ll play off, but for the most part, they’re taking the crowd along for the full ride; and it should come as no surprise to know that Sherwood, who has been doing this is ready for the unexpected.
“Whether an audience member gives us something great or something awful, that’s our responsibility to make something funny out of it,” Sherwood tells Vanyaland. “We go in sort expecting terrible, and it’s really a pleasant surprise when it’s amazing. The job of an improviser is to take great ideas and make them better, and to take terrible ideas and make them great.”
For Sherwood, where mistakes are made is where the magic can sometimes happen, and the quick-draw wit of the duo is not only keeping the crowd on the edge of their seats, but screwing up just adds a whole new layer to what the duo can create on the spot, and they embrace the possibility of that challenge with open arms.
“We’re not looking for shorthand or anything,” says Sherwood. “We’re just looking to say things we haven’t said before, and we trust each other implicitly to know that if something gets weird or off-track, we know that we can make it funny. Mistakes are funny. If [Mochrie] screws up, then it gives me a chance to call attention to that, and vice versa.”
Every night holds something new for Sherwood and Mochrie, and that’s why they’ve been doing this for the last 16 years with the same energy today as when they started their two-man show journey. Leaving it up to the unexpected has kept the fire burning for the duo, and the novelty of feeling like it’s opening night every night has propelled them to never get bored with what they do.
“The biggest factor that keeps us going is that it’s always something new, and there’s no monotony, except for traveling,” says Sherwood. “Think of it in terms of being a band, where you’ve played your hit song 160 million times. You can play it backwards in your sleep, the girl they wrote that song about is, like, five wives ago, and they’re so sick of playing it. But with us, we don’t have to play the same song every night, and we get to go out there with opening night jitters every single night.”
BRAD SHERWOOD AND COLIN MOCHRIE :: Saturday, March 23 at The Cabot, 286 Cabot St. in Beverly, MA :: 7 p.m., $42.50 to $52.50 :: Cabot event page :: Advance tickets