Americans and Canadians significantly better improvisers

I think, even though Ryan was my favourite, Tony, Josie, Steve and even Niall Ashdown and Caroline Quentin match up to make the British side better overall.

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"Tony's hoedowns were really great 9 times out of 10 he played them"

Although I don't agree with you on that, I do agree with you on the Colin Mochrie point. He was awful at Hoedown and eneded up mostly playing up to that. The first time he did the collapsing thing it was mildly amusing but the more he did it the more embarrassing it became. At least Steve Frost always made up some ridiculous rhyme that had nothing to do with the subject whenever he got in trouble. So yes, I agree with you there.

Well if the above embarrasses you, Colin Mochrie is even more cringeworthy every time he played Hoedown by repeatedly pretending to faint to avoid singing a whole verse(a prepared gag he did worringly frequently for a programmme that was meant to be spontaneous).

Actually the first time he did that he was singing about high cholesterol and feigned a heartattack, the 2 or possibly 3 other times he did that were in reference to the first as a kind of running in-joke.

I'm British, I've watched Whose Line since about 1992 and I agree with the original poster. The Americans', although a good many are Canadian but they may forgive you, are far better at 'improv' than we are.

Despite preferring Brit humour over the American style of a sitcom-for-every-occasion humor I do admit that they are the kings of improv by several imperial miles. Chicago, NYC, Seattle and Canada's Vancouver were just some of the epicentres of great improv theatres and troupes who were honing their skills long before the 1980's Cambridge/Oxford explosion that gave us the many modern-day Monty Python replacements.

That is the reason why Americans and Canadians truly improvise during sketches in Whose Line whereas Brits tend to use pre-meditated characters and oft-used anecdotes.


Brittish improvisation...

Steve Frost
Plays a bus conductor in every sketch, including those that did not actually ask for any improvisation. There are even times when you can see Ryan, Colin, Greg or Mike look over at him and think to themselves "How did the Brits win WWII for us with that kind of numbskull tucked up somewhere!"

Tony Slattery
Attempts unnecessary lewdety at any opportunity. Accompanies all of his punchlines by thrusting up his shoulders and making some odd scrunched-up facial expression.

Josie Lawrence
Must have exceptional empathic skills towards Colin and Ryan because she is the sole Brit to actually get the whole idea of 'improv'. She is still miles better than any American chick on Whose Line.

Rory Bremner
Famous British impersonator who uses any and all camera time he ever gets to say "Look, these are all the different voices I can do!!!" He was very popular in the 80's as a great impersonator but now he's so political that the average 'Joe' on the street only knows about 10% of his impersonations. He persistently bores Brit audiences by being asked to guest on shows just to give an unfunny rendition of a politician that noone has ever heard of before. He's a real gem.

IMO Tony was the best, followed by Mike, Josie, Colin, Ryan, Paul etc.

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