Regan Not Worried About Not Being Scandalous In Stand-Up Routine
August 24, 2016 at 6:31 p.m.
Regan Not Worried About Not Being Scandalous In Stand-Up Routine
By David [email protected]
Then he was headed to Missouri, Colorado and a host of other states for stand-up performances.
“I’m on tour basically all the time, but I don’t work every weekend,” he said in a recent telephone interview.
Regan brings his show to the Honeywell Center, Wabash, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8. Tickets are $35, $45 and $75 and available through the box office or the website at honeywellcenter.org.
In a Sept. 23 New York Times article, reporter Jason Zinoman wrote about how Regan refuses to curse onstage and steers clear of anything topical, sexual or remotely confessional.
“Other people are more interested in that than I am,” Regan said during the interview. “I like to talk about things that interest me. I just want to be funny. I just want people to walk out laughing and have a good time.”
He said he doesn’t think about whether or not his show is clean or not, that’s just an asterisk. If a person leaves his showing having had a good time and then only realizes later that it was a clean show, Regan said that’s great to him.
Regan, who turned 58 on June 2, discovered he could be a comedian in college.
“I took a speech class. When I tried to make speeches, I tried to be funny,”?he said. His class laughed and he enjoyed the experience and wanted more of that feeling. He eventually realized that he could pursue comedy as a career.
“Comedians don’t think of making it a career as a kid. Kids want to be firefighters and things like that. In college, it was fun and then my eyes were opened to this as a possibility,”?he said.
He said he didn’t have one big break, but many moments along the way that helped him with his career.
“One of the big ones was ‘The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,’” he said.
Then he landed on “Late Show with David Letterman,” and the show kept asking him back over and over, about every nine months, Regan estimated. He made his 28th and final stand-up performance on the television show May 8, 2015.
“He kept letting me doing it until I got it right,” Regan joked about Letterman.
“I guess it just worked out. He liked my stuff. The first time was a big deal. The second time was just about as big of a deal as the first. The third time, I realized he liked what I did, and his staff told me (Letterman) liked my stuff.”
Doing late night television show is a big deal to any comedian, he said.
“Doing comedy every night is fun, but when you have your television show appearance, it’s like a booster shot. It underscores where you’re at on the playing field,” Regan explained.
He made television history on Sept. 26 with the live broadcast of “Brian Regan: Live from Radio City Music Hall,” the first live broadcast of a stand-up special in Comedy Central’s history, according to information provided.
He has released three hour-long television specials, three CDs and four DVDs. “Brian Regan: Live from Radio City Music Hall” airs on Comedy Central and is available on CD and DVD. His other Comedy Central performances also can be found on CD or DVD.
Regan got to make an appearance in a movie in 2014 when he was invited by Chris Rock to appear in Rock’s 2014 movie “Top Five.”
“Chris Rock and I are friendly. We know each other from the comedy world. He and I were late night crawlers,” Regan said, explaining that they would go from comedy house to comedy house to do stand up and would end up doing the after-midnight spots.
Regan said Rock was able to pop out of the comedy circuit. Rock has appeared in shows like “Saturday Night Live,” movies like “Dogma” and even hosted the Oscars.
“We always liked each other. I was performing in New Jersey and he came and saw the show. Afterward, he complimented me on it. After that, he wanted me for the movie. It was a huge deal to me,” Regan said.
What surprised Regan was when they used his appearance in “Top Five” for the movie trailer. “That was a nice thing for me,” he said.
The movie definitely wasn’t clean like Regan’s stand-up performances, he pointed out. But again, he said that’s never been a big deal to him.
On Regan, Rock is quoted as saying, “No comedian in the world says, ‘Yeah, I want to follow Brian Regan.’”
For his Sept. 8 show in Wabash, Regan joked, “If people like music, dancing, comedy and a third of something, I’ll be doing a third of that.”
For more on Regan, visit his website at www.BrianRegan.com; follow him on Twitter at @BrianReganComic or on Facebook at facebook.com/BrianReganComedian.
Latest News
E-Editions
Then he was headed to Missouri, Colorado and a host of other states for stand-up performances.
“I’m on tour basically all the time, but I don’t work every weekend,” he said in a recent telephone interview.
Regan brings his show to the Honeywell Center, Wabash, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8. Tickets are $35, $45 and $75 and available through the box office or the website at honeywellcenter.org.
In a Sept. 23 New York Times article, reporter Jason Zinoman wrote about how Regan refuses to curse onstage and steers clear of anything topical, sexual or remotely confessional.
“Other people are more interested in that than I am,” Regan said during the interview. “I like to talk about things that interest me. I just want to be funny. I just want people to walk out laughing and have a good time.”
He said he doesn’t think about whether or not his show is clean or not, that’s just an asterisk. If a person leaves his showing having had a good time and then only realizes later that it was a clean show, Regan said that’s great to him.
Regan, who turned 58 on June 2, discovered he could be a comedian in college.
“I took a speech class. When I tried to make speeches, I tried to be funny,”?he said. His class laughed and he enjoyed the experience and wanted more of that feeling. He eventually realized that he could pursue comedy as a career.
“Comedians don’t think of making it a career as a kid. Kids want to be firefighters and things like that. In college, it was fun and then my eyes were opened to this as a possibility,”?he said.
He said he didn’t have one big break, but many moments along the way that helped him with his career.
“One of the big ones was ‘The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,’” he said.
Then he landed on “Late Show with David Letterman,” and the show kept asking him back over and over, about every nine months, Regan estimated. He made his 28th and final stand-up performance on the television show May 8, 2015.
“He kept letting me doing it until I got it right,” Regan joked about Letterman.
“I guess it just worked out. He liked my stuff. The first time was a big deal. The second time was just about as big of a deal as the first. The third time, I realized he liked what I did, and his staff told me (Letterman) liked my stuff.”
Doing late night television show is a big deal to any comedian, he said.
“Doing comedy every night is fun, but when you have your television show appearance, it’s like a booster shot. It underscores where you’re at on the playing field,” Regan explained.
He made television history on Sept. 26 with the live broadcast of “Brian Regan: Live from Radio City Music Hall,” the first live broadcast of a stand-up special in Comedy Central’s history, according to information provided.
He has released three hour-long television specials, three CDs and four DVDs. “Brian Regan: Live from Radio City Music Hall” airs on Comedy Central and is available on CD and DVD. His other Comedy Central performances also can be found on CD or DVD.
Regan got to make an appearance in a movie in 2014 when he was invited by Chris Rock to appear in Rock’s 2014 movie “Top Five.”
“Chris Rock and I are friendly. We know each other from the comedy world. He and I were late night crawlers,” Regan said, explaining that they would go from comedy house to comedy house to do stand up and would end up doing the after-midnight spots.
Regan said Rock was able to pop out of the comedy circuit. Rock has appeared in shows like “Saturday Night Live,” movies like “Dogma” and even hosted the Oscars.
“We always liked each other. I was performing in New Jersey and he came and saw the show. Afterward, he complimented me on it. After that, he wanted me for the movie. It was a huge deal to me,” Regan said.
What surprised Regan was when they used his appearance in “Top Five” for the movie trailer. “That was a nice thing for me,” he said.
The movie definitely wasn’t clean like Regan’s stand-up performances, he pointed out. But again, he said that’s never been a big deal to him.
On Regan, Rock is quoted as saying, “No comedian in the world says, ‘Yeah, I want to follow Brian Regan.’”
For his Sept. 8 show in Wabash, Regan joked, “If people like music, dancing, comedy and a third of something, I’ll be doing a third of that.”
For more on Regan, visit his website at www.BrianRegan.com; follow him on Twitter at @BrianReganComic or on Facebook at facebook.com/BrianReganComedian.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092