Despite Greg Proops’ reputation for being sharp and sarcastic, he sounds sincere, reflective and maybe a little tired on the phone from San Francisco. He’s performing at the city’s Sketchfest, before heading to Victoria for a live version of the hit improv television show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but he doesn’t have the luxury of watching any of the other Sketchfest shows.
“I’m so bloody busy trying to get my shit together,” admits Proops. Between interviewing Eddie Izzard, performing standup, and recording an episode of his podcast (jokingly titled “The Smartest Man in the World”), Proops clearly has his hands full.
Most know him from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but Proops has explored every corner of the comedy world. And although he’s had his hands in many funny pies, he always ends up coming back to improv. But Proops’ cross-disciplinary approach is less common than you might expect.
“Most standups don’t care for improv at all, and most improvisers think that standups are self-centred assholes, and I think they’re both true,” he says. “I’ve been fortunate enough to do both, and I find that the improvisors that I work with are enormously creative and do lots of other things as well. If we never get around to sitting around and formally writing a sketch, it’s because we have so much fun making it up.”
Proops’ standup set at Sketchfest is also improvised. “That’s kind of a freefall as well; they kind of hand you a list of topics and you have to make them up as you go along,” he says. “I prefer the freefall to the prepared.”
Proops says that he finds it hard to imagine what he’d be doing in a world without comedy, but it’d probably involve him getting up to no good.
“I’d probably be a petty criminal or drug addict or something. Well, I’m both now, but I’ve combined them with my job,” he jokes.
In an alternate universe, Proops also entertains the idea that he might be writing history books somewhere. The dramatic arts, even in an improvised setting, don’t even come into the equation.
“There are other types of improv where the goal isn’t to be necessarily funny,” says Proops, “but I find that being funny is a good launching-off point for focus.”
Whose Live Anyway?
Friday, February 17, 7pm and 9:30pm
McPherson Playhouse, $49.50
rmts.bc.ca