RETIREMENT CAN WAIT.

COLIN MOCHRIE HAS TROUBLE TO GET INTO.

For years, improv comic Colin Mochrie’s approach to knee problems was to pretend he didn’t have any.

“I thought, ‘You know what? Nobody’s really noticing,'” Mochrie said in a phone interview. “And then it got to the point where audience members would come up to me after shows and say, ‘You know, I have someone who can help you with your knee.'”

After he saw himself performing in a video someone had posted, he thought, “Who did I think I was kidding?”

When Mochrie returns to the Honeywell Center in Wabash on Saturday with Brad Sherwood for their new show called “Asking for Trouble,” he will have healed up from two surgeries: replacement of his left knee and reattachment of his retina. He said he will get the right knee replaced next year.

Having seen many of the duo’s live shows, I had to ask: “How is ‘Asking for Trouble’ different from the others?”

“The title,” Mochrie said.

One addition to the show makes the title seem particularly apt for Mochrie.

“We’re doing this big musical now, where we just get a bunch of unrelated stuff from the audience and try to make a story out of it. And since there is only one of us who can really sing, it’s very interesting.”

Mochrie initially paired with Sherwood for live shows 24 years ago because he was less familiar with Sherwood than he was with other “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” cast members and he thought that lack of familiarity would make for better comedy.

Asked whether the two men could still surprise each other after nearly a quarter century, Mochrie said, “I really thought he’d get more work by now.”

Even after all this time, Mochrie can’t always anticipate his partner’s next move.

“That’s the beauty of improv,” he said. “No matter how often you work with someone, you can still be surprised because every situation that comes up is different. And there’s times where, ‘Oh, I know where he’s going to go. Oh no, he’s not going there.’ So, it keeps us fresh. There’s no point where you can just kind of walk through the show. I have to be aware the entire time of everything that’s going on.”

As for the TV show that made the Canadian Mochrie an American celebrity, he said he really doesn’t know why the CW gave up on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

“I know the CW sort of turned to more non-scripted programming, which I kind of figured, ‘Okay, then we’re in.’ But I guess they decided not to for whatever reason.”

Mochrie said he is shocked it went on as long as it did and was as popular as it was.

“Even when we were doing the ABC show, we were up against ‘Friends’ and ‘Survivor.’ So I’m shocked that people actually saw it. And I have to say thank you to the internet for keeping it going. That’s what brought us to the CW: all these kids who weren’t born during the early days catching up with it. There was this groundswell. It’s the same now. On TikTok and Instagram, there’s clips all over the place.”

Former “Whose Line” cast member Wayne Brady continues to do quite well for himself as host of “Let’s Make a Deal,” and former “Whose Line” host Drew Carey long ago stepped out of Bob Barker’s shadow to become a beloved “Price Is Right” institution in his own right.

Asked which venerable game show he would most like to host, Mochrie said, “The $100,000 Pyramid.”

“When it was ‘The $10,000 Pyramid’ back in the ’90s or something, my friends and I would play it all the time. We’d turn down the sound on the television because we didn’t have a dating life.”

American audiences know Mochrie primarily as an improviser, but his Canadian credits include scripted series and movies.

“There’s one coming out. It’s a web…Actually, I can’t keep up whether it’s a web series or whether it’s on network television. But it takes place at a seniors’ home. That’s where I’m at now in the casting. I’ve gotten three different offers to be on shows about a retirement home.”

Mochrie was referring to “Harmony Gardens,” whose cast also includes his wife, Canadian actress and comedian Debra McGrath. No word yet on where and when it will stream. The two will also appear together in a Hallmark movie that he said will begin shooting soon.

“We actually get to play a married couple, which is fun,” he said.

With his 69th birthday approaching in November, I asked Mochrie whether retirement from touring ever enters the picture.

Mochrie said he actually considered retiring during the pandemic when he was able to spend a lot of pleasant time at his Toronto home with McGrath and thought he might like to do a lot more of that.

But his two recent surgeries were followed by an unexpected burst of enthusiasm.

“Coming back, I felt kind of really rejuvenated,” he said. “The shows we’ve done since then have been so much fun. It has given us our third or fourth wind.”

“Asking for Trouble” with Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood: $31 – $81, Honeywell Center, 275 W. Market Street, Wabash, 260.563.1102, honeywellarts.org  

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