North Texas Daily

On Saturday, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” star Brad Sherwood took the stage at Medical City Lewisville Grand Theater and showcased his comedy skills that kept the audience cracking up. Although it has been some time since he has been on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” he had a full house to see his performance. 

The show started with opening performer Paul Varghese, who holds the title of Funniest Comic in Texas. His was a classic comedy set, getting a lot of audience engagement and lots of laughs. The audience was not expecting to see Varghese because he was not included in any of the promotional materials for the show, but based on their engagement with his performance, they were pleased with his attendance.

Following Varghese’s set, Sherwood took the stage. “Never follow the funniest guy in Texas,” he said.

Sherwood took a different approach from Varghese, using lots of audience interaction and volunteers. Sherwood had everyone shout out their name, favorite dessert topping and favorite football team. This got the audience used to talking and getting involved with the performance. His show was also set up in more of a game show style, as opposed to a typical stand up comedy approach. 

After breaking the ice, Sherwood began the main part of his set with the first game. He took two volunteers from the audience named Brenda and Alex. In the first game, Sherwood started a sentence, and Brenda and Alex had to finish it with whatever came to mind. Then Sherwood made sense of it to make the sentences and the volunteers’ phrases flow together. They ended up coming up with a funny story that kept the audience attentive.

In the second game, Sherwood brought three men on stage who identified as not liking their jobs. In this game, Sherwood learned about one of the guys’ jobs, then created a rap about it, and the other men were assigned to dance along. The freestyle rap ended up being about two minutes, and the audience was laughing the entire time. 

The third game was one designed for “Game of Thrones” fans, so Sherwood pulled two volunteers who were fans of the show on stage. In this game, Sherwood would ask a question pertaining to the “Game of Thrones” storyline, and had the volunteers take turns reading off messages from their phones, then Sherwood would make the content of the messages play into the story. This interactive game had the audience, even people not familiar with “Game of Thrones,” dying of laughter.

For the fourth and final game, Sherwood did not take volunteers and instead facilitated an interactive game with the entire audience. This game was called “Smart Questions or Stupid Questions?” and anyone from the audience could raise their hand and ask a question, then Sherwood would break into song about it. People asked questions on a wide scale, from “How are babies made?” to “What’s your favorite kidney?” Every song that he freestyled to answer the questions had the audience laughing.

Sherwood also took opportunities as they came to allude to Varghese’s set. This was engaging because it tied the two comedy sets together and showed the audience that Sherwood watched and acknowledged the opening act’s performance. 

Throughout the show, there were some technical difficulties with the microphones that caused for several adjustments and microphone swaps. Most performers would get discouraged or annoyed from this, but Sherwood incorporated it into his act and sporadically made jokes about the fact that the microphones were barely working.

At the conclusion of the show, Sherwood received a standing ovation from the audience. The audience members were very engaged the entire time, as no one was on their phone or walked out during it. Sherwood did a great job engaging the audience to make them want to participate and keep watching. 

Featured Image: Comedian Brad Sherwood performs his comedy show, which featured improv and volunteers on Jan. 25, 2020. Image by Ryan Cantrell