(Semi-TV) Whose Line? live shows - how do the tours differ?

[David Bruggeman]

Last night I went to see the Whose Line is it Anyway? live show in Santa Rosa, followed by Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood's improv tour tonight in Sacramento.

Besides the performers (the current Whose Line tour lineup is Ryan Stiles*, Greg Proops, Jeff Davis and Joel Murray), there are probably three major differences between the shows.

Laura Hall provided live piano accompaniment for the Whose Line show, while Colin and Brad performed to tracks.  I suppose improv purists might be bothered by having the same instrumental tracks for each show, but I'd counter that the live music tends to follow pretty standards forms when it's used, even on the show.

Brad and Colin would do some longer games, and more of their games either weren't on the TV show, or weren't in heavy rotation on the show.

Most of the time Colin and Brad got suggestions from the audience before saying what the game was, while the Whose Line gang usually called out the game first.

*Ryan was not there in Santa Rosa (and he probably misses/missed their other shows this weekend), but they got Drew Carey to sub in.  Understandably, he was a bit rusty and repetitive, to the point of using the same Dobie Gillis reference twice.  (For those less charitable among us, you could note that Drew usually hosted the TV show, and rarely performed.)

The main drawback with these shows is the audience.  You can expect a lot of (dumb, repetitive, boring, nonresponsive) suggestion shouting.

If you had to choose between the two shows, I'd go with whichever one has more of your favorite performers.  If that's not a factor, Brad and Colin's show will be different enough that you won't think it's just like a TV episode.

Either way, it's a fine way to spend an evening.

Best,

David

[M-D November]

Minor point of clarification: the Greg/Ryan/Jeff/Joel tour is "Whose LIVE Anyway?".  They use the TV's show's name extensively in advertising, but not in the actual title of the show.

I haven't seen the Brad/Colin tour, but I saw Whose Live a couple of years back at the Keswick in Glenside (Philly). I believe it was their first or second stop coming out of COVID hiatus, and frankly Ryan looked AWFUL, but I was inclined to give them some slack because a) I like all of them (or, at least, Ryan, Greg & Jeff - I don't really know Joel at all) and b) see above re: COVID. I'll echo David's comments above, but I'll add that I think improv suffers in a big house like the ones these tours typically play. 

Improv is, at its heart, an intimate experience, and doing improv in a barn just doesn't; work.  Normally I'm the first person to start shouting suggestions when prompted, but I didn't even bother at WLA because I was a good 20+ rows back from the stage; the combination of the distance, my mask, and the fact that theatrical acoustics do not work that way meant that there wasn't a chance in hell that anything I suggested would make it to the stage. Anyone pulled for participation in a game (and any crowd work being done) would be confined to the first few rows of the house. While the evening was still very funny, the loss of the potential for audience participation was a bit deflating.  

I'm not here to suggest that improv should be hidden away in basement comedy clubs and college black box theaters, but from my experiences (both as a fan and as a performer), smaller venues work better for improv because smaller venues facilitate a better connection between audience & performers.  Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[David Bruggeman]

To reinforce the points about audience size, the Santa Rosa venue seats at least 1200, and the Sacramento venue seats 900, at least the way they were configured.  I know Whose Live was very close to sold out, and Colin and Brad were at least 75 percent sold.  I haven't been to a show taping, but I would guess both crowds were larger than the studio audience by at least a factor of 4.

This didn't stop people from the upper rows (which is where I sat) from yelling stuff out.

Best,

David

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[M-D November]

I'm not saying being in a 1000+ seat house would stop EVERYONE from calling out suggestions - I'm saying that it stopped ME because I understand how sound travels in a theater.  And yes, the WLIIA? TV set is an order of magnitude smaller, made even smaller still by the fact that the performers are largely playing to camera, not to the studio audience, and that the suggestions are being funneled through Clive/Drew/Aisha, who undoubtedly is getting fed the better/TV-friendly suggestions by the producers via IEM.