Being a clean comedian isn’t always a selling point.
For Brian Regan, known for his nearly incessant touring and 27 appearances on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” sometimes the fact that he works clean can be something of a liability.
“I feel it marginalizes me,” admitted Regan, who performs in Great Falls Friday, Feb. 6. “I don’t want to be known as someone who’s a funny clean comedian. I want to be known as a funny comedian. The fact that I work clean is incidental.”
Regan has built a reputation for making the inane funny — a trip in heavy Los Angeles traffic, doing taxes and the stresses of reading the newspaper — and it’s evidence of his belief that everything is fair game when it comes to telling jokes.
“It just depends on your point of view or perspective,” he said.
Lately, Regan says he’s been venturing into the world of politics. That’s different for audiences that are familiar with his work.
“Sometimes I can feel audiences kind of squirm; they’re not quite sure, ‘What’s he doing? He didn’t do this last time?’” he said.
In that vein, Regan’s fine with comics who work blue, or tell dirty jokes to get laughs. That said, it may be true that it’s easier for comics to get laughs with a dirty joke than a clean one.
“For me, I want to make sure they’re laughing because it’s funny and not because it’s titillating,” he said.
Regan’s use of his own life for some of his jokes is “pretty much” true, he said.
“You might exaggerate here and there, but for the most part, it’s funnier if it’s something that did happen to you,” he said.
That said, he admits he was once heckled during a routine when he did one joke saying he flew into town and did another joke a little while later that said he had taken a bus to the town and later still that he had driven there. In putting the bit together, Regan hadn’t realized he contradicted himself twice.
“That’s three modes of transportation!” someone yelled from the audience.
Regan was impressed, and amused, that the man had been paying attention that closely and that he used the word “mode” in a heckle.
Minor details like that notwithstanding, Regan says that seeing the world in a funny or slightly absurd way. Some people are wired for visual arts, others for fine crafting. Regan, he’s wired to tell jokes about the ridiculousness of newspapers not ending all their stories on the front page. Who wants to open the newspaper and look for the rest of the story, anyway?
How jokes are presented is a long process of reworking, practicing and timing. Bringing new jokes to an audience for the first time is what’s fun.
“Sometimes people laugh where you think they’ll laugh or not laugh where you think they’ll laugh, or laugh at a part you didn’t think was funny. That’s what’s fun,” he said.
By the time a joke reaches YouTube or a comedy special, it’s likely been told and retold dozens of times until it’s just right.
The advantage of the Internet is getting material out to a wider audience, and Regan, who started back in the day of sending comedy club owners VHS tapes of routines to try to get booked, is cognizant of the fact that Internet exposure gets new people to shows. But it also allows for material he isn’t ready to get to a larger audience to be leaked online.
“I like to decide when a joke is ready for public consumption. Some I’m still working on, they’re not ready yet. You’re tweaking them. You don’t want people to videotape the first time and throw it up on YouTube,” he said.
That’s a little like taking the brownies out of the oven before they’re ready.
“That’s kind of a drag to have that power, that part of the equation taken away from you sometimes,” Regan said.
Take the jokes he’s prepared for Letterman — those bits might be in the works for nine months or a year and a half before Regan’s TV appearance.
The 27 appearances on Letterman is a record, one that, with Letteman’s upcoming retirement, most likely will stand. His last appearance was in October 2014, and Regan took that time to tell Letterman, backstage, that he appreciated the opportunity to be on the show.
But he’s not sentimental about the show’s end, nor does he have any contact with Letterman’s successor, Stephen Colbert, on possible appearances.
“The world changes, man, everything is always transitioning,” he said.
After all, the world — its changes, foibles and absurdities — is what Regan finds so funny.
The Essentials
What: Brian Regan
When: Friday, Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mansfield Theater, 2 Park Drive S, Great Falls
Cost: Tickets are $39.50 each. To purchase, go to http://ticketing.greatfallsmt.net
No comments:
Post a Comment