Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza was the third home of the amorphous group we'll call 'Drew Carey and friends' after Whose Line Is It Anyway and the Green Screen show. It ended sometime last year and hasn't been picked up by the network for a new season. I believe that some of the gang have rehoused in Trust Us With Your Life but I don't know when we'll see them all together next.
So I'm glad I stumbled upon Improv-a-Ganza a few days ago. And it's good, it's really good. The new additions- Jonathan Mangum and Heather Anne Campbell- work seamlessly with the Old Guard. And it's nice to see a female performer who doesn't bring the rest of the group down (I used to groan at every episode of Whose Line with Kathy Greenwood in it). But let me say this properly because I dread forced alliances with all sides, equally. It makes no difference to me whether there's a woman on the show or not and the lack of one indicates very little. What it does, however, is introduce a different chemistry, whether or not the women are playing at being women. So yes, Heather AC tick, Jonathan M tick, no Kathy G supertick.
The superest tick of them all goes to Jeff Davis. He was given a prominent part in the show, appearing in the third highest number of episodes after Drew and Ryan, and the way in which he occupied it is revelatory. He was always good but there's an assertiveness here that probably stems from his being more than just an infrequent guest. He gets more straight-acting scenes and is excellent in them, holding his own against Colin and Ryan. And the songs: oh the songs! Chip and Jeff turn lumberjacks into pancake stacks (and I'm not exaggerating).
We say hello to some great games, too: Question This, First Date, Forward/Reverse, New Choice, Showstopper. Some work better than they did on Whose Line, some work differently and some don't work at all. Why? Because Improv-a-Ganza is Whose Line, but bigger.
This isn't a minor (1) point, it's everything. A large part of Whose Line was a kind of warmth that came from a small studio, an audience that you could see and a stage that wasn't really a stage: distinct but not distant. Improv-a-Ganza is filmed in the MGM theatre in Vegas and even the opening credits speak to the change of scale. There's a proper stage, the audience aren't just audience but customers; it's an event. What does this mean for the show? It means that casual lines aren't really casual, that the performers are dressed are performers (neater clothes, donned with mikes), and that laughter can get lost in space.
The challenge for the show was to incorporate this large-ness while keeping the funnies intact. The games that work are the ones which do this well. First Date is a great example because, by having a couple volunteer for the show and by working around a relateable theme (two cast-members enact the couple's first dates with directions from them-10 minutes into this clip), it makes the sketch accessible. It can't just be about participation, though, and the show flounders when it is unable to regulate access. 'Options' is a less successful game because in an attempt to open it up, it stops and starts the action on stage to collect suggestions on acting styles from the audience. Not only does this make for an uneven sketch, coughing it's way to the finish, but it results in predictably similar suggestions: 'Kabuki!' 'Western!' 'Horror!' 'Shakespeare!'. Oh Las Vegas, make a new choice (2), won't you?
But, really, who cares if a couple of games don't work as well? There are more than enough things that work in favour of the show to make up for the docked points, and the points don't matter anyway (3). Sure, I miss Scenes From A Hat, Weird Newscasters and Hoedown (I can hear Ryan yell with joy), and I'd love to see Wayne, Laura Hall and Linda Taylor (and the third one) again. But Whose Line worked because the people on it were immensely talented and that hasn't changed. Colin and Ryan are still brilliant but the others have raised their game showcasing new possibilities: personal range, partnerships, comedic style. And that's a showstopper, if you know what I mean (4) (5).
(5) Sadly, the Game Show Network didn't know what I meant and stopped the show.
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