October 1st 2016, Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood performed their “Two Man Group” improv comedy show to a very packed and excited crowd at “The Maryland Theatre”.

As soon as the men came on stage, a cheer erupted. They asked how everyone was doing that night and in response came more cheering and woos. They said something to the effect of “I guess they’re very woo tonight” and the first laughs of the night came from the crowd’s mouths. They went on and said that they were happy to be performing again in Hagerstown. Its been a few years since they were here, but they were happy to be back and made a joke about us not calling them. Then they explained how in improv comedy everything is made up and the show will only be good is our suggestions are good so we should do our best to be creative. They asked if we have seen “Whose line is it anyways” which a lot of the people seemed to have. Followed by that, they asked if there were any people out there who thought the TV show was all planned and so were the jokes, to which a small few thought so. Colin tells them that they are wrong and they will see for themselves tonight that it is intact all made up.

For their first game of the night, they asked for two lovely female volunteers and hands shot up almost instantly. Up on stage, after being introduced, the ladies were given pads of paper that held written suggestions that they had to read out to Colin and Brad when it was their turn to do so. They then asked the audience for a place, thing and activity. Zumba classes at the Sanitarium with a live bear is what came from that. The scene started with the live bear, being the Zumba class’s mascot, getting loose. Brad and Colin try to find the bear before it can hurt the Zumba class all while wondering why they brought in a live bear for a mascot in the first place instead of just sticking with a drawing. Each time the scene was done, the volunteers on stage had to read out a item on their list and hilarity would soon come to. One girl would read a item and then the other would also say one. Both suggestions were then combined and added to the scene. Such outcomes from the list were to do it again as a Sesame Street porno, river dancing while using a different accent, the same scene only using questions to talk to each other and Scottish Dr. Seuss.

Another game they played was of a man who wanted a toilet built on the roof! Luckily his best friend Colin came over to help. Through various parts of the dialog one of the men would say “what do you mean” and a music would come on. The person being asked what they meant would then have to sing about the situation to match the music being played. As the game went on, we learned that Brad was married to a woman named Beth, but she left him. Since then he has been doing very odd things like wanting to poop on the roof, shower near the mailbox in a see through glass shower, and go on a trip to cover the pyramids with marbles. We also find out that Brad likes to massage animals and when he was a young lad, he wanted to be a mermaid when he grew up so he could swim around with a tail and lure in guys. Whether the craziness was caused by Beth leaving him or if he was always this nutty is up for debate. For all we know, the mermaid thing could of just been a product of a young child’s imagination and nothing more. Although with the current situation, that theory doesn’t look to good for Brad. But Colin did at one point say that his friend was less odd before Beth left so who knows for sure. Anyways, being the good friend that Colin is, he was showing Brad some “tough love”, and called him out on his odd behaviors and wanted for him to go get help. Colin suggested this new treatment which consisted of exercising and wearing spanks.

Two more volunteers were called on stage, a young man named Luke and a female who’s name I can’t recall, and took part in a popular “Whose line is it anyways” game known as Moving people. This is a game where the volunteers have to move the performers to act out the scene. They start by explaining what motions to do to get them to move. Accepted motions include; taping their thighs to get them to walk and physically moving their heads and arms, etcetera to get those parts to move. They also gave caution that they are human and mature so they can only move certain ways. “If you hear a crack please stop.” while explaining where to touch, they made a joke that touching the crouch area will make the volunteer go home with them which got some laughs. The scene was about two astronauts getting ready to go to space. At the start, Brad walked off stage and the female volunteer who was to move him in the scene wasn’t sure what to do at first. She hesitated a bit with a look of uncertainty on her face before following after him. Nudging Brad’s thighs, he made her walk him from the edge of out of view all the way to center stage where Colin was. They gave a pre-flight “boundary issues” hug before getting on the craft since it was tradition. Once in the rocket, Colin grabs hold of the steering wheel. They put on their space helmets, get buckled up and Brad switches on all the switches and press all the buttons without even looking. He has it all memorized! As they blast off, Colin steers and Brad raises his arms up like he is on a roller coaster. Once in space, they connect their cables to a door knob in the ship and go for a space walk. They decided to use their jet packs, but Brad’s doesn’t work and Colin’s gets out of control. He ends up jet packing out into space far away from the ship. So if you ever go into space, whatever you do, do not connect your safety cable to a door knob!

Later on, a horrible crime was committed by Mr. Mochrie! While Colin was listening to some music with headphones on, facing away from the crowd, Brad asks the crowd for many suggestions. instead of shouting them out, he had people raise their hands and call on them for their suggestion. He wanted two things that were to be the crimes but aren’t illegal activities. The first crime was over watering a Ficus. The second being Colin playing too much Pokemon go. I found this choice to be a little odd since the popularity of Pokemon go has declined a lot recently, but it must still be relevant enough according to this. Next Brad needed an town that had a long name and sounded Native American. That town ended up being Chick-a-me-ho-nee. Next, He needed a business that makes no sense. A few different suggestions were taken for this one; frog painting, go karts and lady farts. These were combined to create the business. Lastly he needed something to be left at the scene of the crime. Leprechaun son was what Brad ended up going with.

After all the needed suggestions were given, Brad got Colin, he sat on a stool under the spotlight while Brad interrogated him about his crimes. As Brad talked, he dropped hints and Colin had to guess what he did. One of his guesses involved heroin, which may or may not of been a nod towards Hagerstown’s known heroin issue in the form of a joke. Or, maybe he legit thought it was something that would be suggested by the audience. Only one who knows for sure is Colin and the rest of us will probably never know. All the same, him mentioning it gave the crowd a few laughs so no real harm done. When Colin got to the point where he figured out over watered a plant but didn’t know what kind so there were many guesses; Red Wood, Elm, Oak.. But after a while he got it and to let him know, it was our job as the audience to clap to let him know; light clap for on the right track and loud claps when correct. Pokemon go was presented as the cool new thing all the kids are into and if Colin was hip, he would know what it was. Colin got it right way. For the town name it was hinted at piece by piece. Popular non- four -legged meat… chicken. Hill billy’s girl… ho. The bendy part of a leg… knee. With all that, Colin correctly had the town name which was very amazing. Once he had the frog part, he thought it was a frog petting zoo but once Brad mentioned that kids are so creative, Colin was able to figure out painting. Go Karting was presented as kids want to be like grown-ups and thrilling. Colin thought skydiving to which Brad said not that exciting. and with a few more hints, Colin figured out driving which led to him to soon figuring it out. Lady farts however was a tough one. Yet after being shortly stumped, Collin was able to figure this one out too! To get him to guess the leprechaun son, there was many hints; left something that was alive, was a part of him, he was lucky to be ok, charming, and red hair. Colin was able to guess Leprechaun and three or four more guesses later he was able to understand it was his son. He read back the full crime story to Brad which was very amazing. It's surprising that he was able to figure all that out. I honestly don’t think I ever could do something like that, even with years of practice.

Another popular “Whose line is it anyways” game was played. Sound Effects is a game where you pick audience members from the crowd, bring them up on stage and have them perform all the sound effects for the actions going on. instead of choosing willing volunteers who raised their hands, they chose two people from the front row. In this game they were both cops. Brad was on his first day of the job. Like most times on the show, the people brought up aren’t very good at sound effects at all so they poke fun at them throughout the story. In the cop car, there is a police dog, but because of the wimpy bark it was given. it became a police Chihuahua. Brad, since it was his first day, wanted to turn on the siren but it ended up being one from Europe based on the sound. The horn was wimpy too. The radio was turned on and they told them that it was a Beetles song, but the sound effects guy disappointingly made rave/techno club sounding music… Part of the fun is laughing at the bad sound effects but what he did was just sad. How is there really people who can’t even sing a tiny part of a Beetles song?… Anyways they have to do drug bust at a warehouse. There's a sleeping drug dog who gets kicked awake. It barks and then gets tased. Drug cat and drug hippo also get tased. They call the station for an update on the place they are checking out, to which the girl on stage says “um… no” She’s ended up responding like that multiple times during the game. Three different times… They end up hearing a whisper of 5 people talking. The cops have grenades and Brad has a very cool one that is a percussion grenade. Instead of a normal explosion, it plays a drum solo. However, they decide to tear gas the room. But it turns out nobody was in there. The sounds they were hearing was from a TV in the room playing the hit show called 5 guys. How convenient. They go to the basement where the real criminals are and handcuff them. To celebrate their hard work, they have a drink. However the girl has been quiet in addition to the “um.. no”s so here comes some well needed revenge. She has to make Brad burp super loud, yodel and follow that with animals having sex noises because if she didn’t they were going to make her play the game for twenty more minutes. She did as she was told and it was the sweetest revenge!

The last game of the night was a shocking one. Two stage hands brought out a table with 99 set mouse traps. They were sped across the stage. Colin and Brad took off their shoes and put on blackened out goggles. The stagehands walked to the end the stage and held a rope. This rope was to make sure the performers knew where the end of the stage was so they wouldn’t walk off stage. However, the stagehands forgot about the table. Brad himself moved the table off stage. It wasn’t supposed to be like that though. When he came back, he remarked that they should have practiced, but he was a good sport about it. Brad and Colin were given the suggestion of marshmallow shortage. They walked around stage and made up a story about being in building contests using marshmallows for 15 years and never winning. However, they had high hopes for winning this year. As they walked, many of the mouse traps went off and some clamped onto their bare feet. After decided on building a skyline, they realized they were low on marshmallows so Colin sent Brad to kneel down and get marshmallows out of a bag. Mouse traps went off with one being on his hand. Brad throws a few mouse traps to Colin. Soon after, Colin has his goggles off and is throwing mouse traps at Brad, three of which snap at his crotch and a few barely miss. Despite getting mouse traps to the crotch, Brad tries to go on with the story but after awhile they are just throwing mouse traps at each other. Then Brad takes off his goggles, and sees that Colin is still throwing mouse traps and he was cheating.

They end the show with Elvis Presley’s "My Way" sang with their own lyrics that summed up the show and the fun they had. They even mentioned Hagerstown in the chorus which was a very nice touch. Some performers go place to place and have no idea where they are. But, not only did they know where they were, they never forgot and they added it to their act. It made it feel more personal and genuine. It was a great show. You could tell that the audience had a great time through all the laughter, and cheers. And at the end, there was a standing ovation. I highly recommend seeing their show if you have the opportunity. Even though I explained tonight’s show game by game, nothing has been ruined. The nice thing with improv is each show is different.