Improv comedy legend Colin Mochrie at Winnipeg Fringe Festival

Canadian comedy star Colin Mochrie is in town this week for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.

The star of TV’s “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and movies like “The End of Sex” – directed by Winnipeg filmmaker Sean Garrity – teamed up with Kevin Gillese for four sold-out Fringe Fest improv shows.

Mochrie sat down with CityNews’ Joanne Roberts on Wednesday to talk about his “Colin Mochrie Live” show, and more.

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Roberts: Colin you’re here at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival with your improv comedy (show) with Kevin Gillese. But you’ve also been improvising and playing with some local players here in Winnipeg.

Mochrie: Yeah. You know, I always love working with the kids, which pretty much is everyone else in the improv world. They’re all younger than me. But I did The Big Big Improv (show) a couple of days ago, which was a lot of fun. And tonight I’m doing DnD (Improv).

I love that. And for people who want to see your show, I hear that it’s sold out?

Yeah.

So we should have moved faster.

Sorry.

A lot of celebrities have said some things about their experience in Winnipeg and how they’ve been enjoying it and I’m wondering, how have you been enjoying it?

I have been enjoying it. And, I always love coming to Winnipeg. This is one of the few times I’ve been in Winnipeg not in the winter, so that makes it even nicer. And even in the winter, I still enjoyed it. I have some friends here who, it’s always nice to catch up with. I always love doing fringes because it gives me a chance to actually see shows which I don’t usually get a chance to do. And also, I have a lot of friends here doing shows, so it’s perfect catching up with them. So I don’t actually have to have dinner with them or something. I just watch their show.

Yeah, just do that. That’s much better.

It really is.

Have you seen any shows that you would like to mention now?

I’ve only seen one show so far, but my next couple of days are booked. I saw a Kevin Gillese show: “7 Minutes In Kevin.” A high recommend. It’s a lovely show. It’s dark at times, but it ends on such a lovely, hopeful, message that I hope people catch it. I’m seeing, another friend today, Bob Banks.

Bob! We just had him live yesterday.

Was he… alright?

He was OK. I was a little worried because he was dressed in a snow suit.

Yeah.

And as you know, it’s like, really, really hot outside.

It is.

But there was a reason. And he was great.

He is great. So I’m looking forward to his show, today. And I’m just trying to see what else. Oh, Ingi’s Fingies?

Yes. I’m talking to Ingrid (Hansen) tonight.

Excellent. Then I have to see it, because then you can say, Colin… And her show, I think, is on after ours today, so it’s perfect.

For comedians – I know there are so many in the city that look up to you. For comedians who would want to have some semblance of the amazing career that you’ve had, is there a piece of advice you would like to give to them?

First of all, if there’s something else you’re good at, do that. If not, then do this as much as you can, wherever you can. Watch the people who you think are funny, who you admire, and see what it is about them that touches you. Whether it’s their point of view, whether they’re physical or whether it’s commentary and find ways to steal that. But because you’re doing it through you, it’s totally different from what they do.

I like that. Fine line.

Yeah. So it’s a kind of a Robin Hood deal with skills where you steal from the great and you give it to yourself and change it just enough that you won’t get sued.

You have to, you have to build a very strong ego. And I don’t mean you, you know, you think you’re the best thing in the world and to make fun of other people. But this is a career where you’re just constantly judged. It’s like you’re constantly judged on your job every time you perform it. It’s like if there was a doctor who just, with every examination, had someone off in the corner just writing everything. And there’s sometimes where you can get a little overwhelmed by that, especially if you’re getting bad reviews. You can’t totally disregard them. You have to read them to say, OK, is there something in there that I can use? Or is it just because this person’s sense of humour was not in alignment with mine? If that’s so, then that’s going to happen.

There are gonna… Amazingly, there are people who hate what I do. I know! It makes no sense to me, but it happens. You just have to be strong. It’s a very underappreciated art in a way. Everybody has a funny uncle. Or there’s people who are funny in kitchen parties. That’s different from going in front of an audience who have paid money to laugh. They’re a little harder to please than your family members. So, you got to be strong, do it as much as you can.

Work out all the time. Always keep writing. Keep involved in the world. I know a lot of comedian friends who have a wide array of friends who are (in) different professions. So you don’t get stuck in just comedians and comedy. See other points of view. See where the funny is in everyday life.

So you have made so many people laugh, I feel like are you are best known for Whose Line Is It Anyway?. It’s certainly where I was introduced to your comedy. Is there a particular moment in all of those years where you look back, in the moment you were like, “We can’t air this!”

Well. Richard Simmons just passed away very sadly. And he was responsible, I believe, for one of the funniest things, not only on Whose Line, but in the history of television. I’m going to just say it. In the history of television. And as we were doing it, I thought… I was using him as a jet ski.

I remember that.

And, on the final edit, they actually had to cut that reaction from the audience because it went on so long. He was… his head was bobbing at my crotch for two full minutes. And two minutes is a very long time. And I thought, this is… first of all, this is never going to make it on air. And it did. And it became an instant classic.

In fact, it’s the only Whose Line scene I remember. And it’s because of how, committed Richard was to it and the audience reaction.

You don’t remember things you can say about your dog but not your girlfriend?

(pauses) Oh, yeah… Yeah.

I mean, there are, you know, as I look back, there are some where I go, “my… how did that actually get on air?” Because there was a censor in the booth the entire time, because usually they get scripts, and then they can go over the scripts. You go, “you can’t do this. You can’t do this.” But since there was no script, they were there watching us. And the first show, they stopped taping in the middle and for the next 10 minutes – Drew (Carey) has a real thing against censorship, so he introduced every game with words you can’t say on television. So the producer and the censor got together and said, “look, we’ll wait till after the show and then if you have any problems, we’ll talk about it and we’ll see what we can get.”

And we know that it’s become a major hit and continues to be a major hit with all the reruns on and YouTube videos and it’s amazing. Thank you so much for joining me today. It was really fun. Break a leg with the rest of your Fringe shows and, yeah. Thanks for joining me again.

Thanks for having me.

You can stop rolling. Now for the real questions.

Yeah?

Sorry, Colin. But I wanted to… do you have Wayne Brady’s phone number?

Okay, this goes no farther. The cameras are off? I write all of his stuff. Next time you’re watching, watch really carefully, he’s wearing an earpiece. When he’s doing all the songs, if the camera was just a little bit over, you’d see me telling him what to say. I know it’s a big thing, and I’m not allowed to say anything about it. But man.

Mr. Brady!

Yeah.