Comic Brian Regan has performed for thousands. Thanks to COVID-19, he’ll perform for 120.
When the pandemic first hit back in March and all of Brian Regan’s scheduled shows got shelved, he initially figured that — like the rest of us — he’d just keep working from home.
“I assumed I would take the opportunity to get better organized with my jokes and maybe try to come up with some new stuff,” said the loose-limbed veteran comedian known for his profanity-free observational humor (showcased most widely in his 2017 Netflix special “Nunchucks and Flamethrowers”).
As it turned out — well, has anyone’s year gone the way they thought it would?
“I kind of enjoyed the opportunity to do nothing, and I just said, ‘I’m gonna take this nothing concept as far as I can,’” Regan said, chuckling. “I shut the comedy factory down. No smoke was coming out of my comedy smokestack.”
After multiple false starts, he finally returned to the road for a run of seven intimate, socially distanced shows last week at Helium Comedy Club in Portland, Ore. His next stop is North Carolina, where he’ll perform five times at Goodnights Comedy Club in Raleigh Aug. 6-8; three times at The Comedy Zone in Charlotte Aug. 10-12; and four times at The Comedy Zone in Greensboro Aug. 14-15.
Though Regan’s last two visits to Charlotte were to play venues with capacities of 1,800 (Belk Theater, in 2018) and 2,400 (Ovens Auditorium, in 2019), this time he will perform for a maximum of 120 people at The Comedy Zone. The club was built to accommodate 400.
All staff will be required to wear masks, as will audience members, except when they are eating or drinking at their table).
Tickets are $35 each, plus fees when purchasing online.
We dragged the 62-year-old Las Vegas resident out of bed Monday morning to tell us about canceled shows, why he was so nervous about the Portland shows, and why he’s only got a bare minimum of coronavirus-related jokes in his repertoire right now.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. How’s your day going?
A. Well, it’s 8 a.m. out here and I’ve been awake for about three minutes. Nothing bad has happened in three minutes yet.
Q. What’s it like in Las Vegas these days? I guess the casinos are open again, right?
A. The casinos are open, but with social distancing. For example: a blackjack table that normally seats five, now three people sit at a blackjack table. Some of the blackjack tables, they put plastic partitions between you and the other players, and a partition between you and the dealer. But then you go to another casino and they don’t have that. So they should have ads like, “Be safe here!,” and then other ads like, “Don’t worry about being safe here!”
What’s weird about Las Vegas is — talk about a nonessential city. It’s based on gambling and shows. Not that there isn’t a normal community here as well, but this city got hit hard, because a lot of people are in industries that are considered nonessential.
Q. What did things look like from your perspective — as a road comic — as the pandemic started to unfold?
A. In the middle of March, we started punting some of the March shows to June — keeping them still in regular theaters — and then we realized, “OK, those aren’t gonna happen.” Then we started punting April shows into June and July. I mean, nobody knew it was going to last so long when all this first started.
Then (all those rescheduled shows) got punted again, to 2021. And then we realized, “The only thing we’re even gonna be able to possibly do are comedy clubs.” So, we decided to book a bunch of those, for dates in late June and throughout July. And then those all got canceled. In other words, they were booked during COVID, but then the clubs weren’t ready to open by the time I was supposed to go.
The first one that did not get canceled was Portland, which was last week. Portland. Of all places.
Q. I’ve never been to Portland. I don’t know the city. Is that club far removed from the protest zone?
A. I mean, I kind of assumed Portland was gonna get canceled, too, and believe me, I was worried. Before we went up there, I was like, “Of all the cities to use to get back out, how in the hell is it Portland?” It was weird.
As far as the civil unrest, it wasn’t near where the club was, and it wasn’t near where our hotel was. It actually kind of calmed down while we were there. I just read an article that the last two nights that I was there is right when they sort of came to an agreement with the federal government, where the federal government was gonna back off on how many people they had there. Had nothing to do with me, though. The article didn’t say, “The last two nights Brian was in town...”
Q. And how did those shows go up there?
A. Well, those are the first shows I’d done in four months. So I felt like the Tin Man, kind of squeaking. I needed oil to loosen myself up.
Q. Obviously, I know that you have decades of experience, but were you nervous at all? I mean, just because a crowd of 100 is a much different beast than a crowd of 3,000.
A. Yeah, what’s weird is usually someone would get nervous if they’re gonna go perform in front of a big crowd instead of a small crowd. This was the reverse. I am used to a big crowd but I was going to perform in front of a small crowd. And yes, I got nervous. Not debilitatingly.
But it was a bit of a weird feeling. Like, “Geez, I don’t know how this is gonna go.” I hadn’t done my act in four months, and I’m like, “Am I gonna remember how to do it?” I had to review and listen to a whole show and write everything down. Then the day of the first show in Portland, I worked on my act for like three, four hours beforehand, just making sure that I had the bits and the moments ready to rock. But yeah, it felt a little queasy hitting the stage.
There’s a certain energy to performing in front of a theater, and it’s a different energy when you’re performing in front of a smaller audience. I had to take my foot off the gas a little bit. But after the first show, I felt like, “OK, I know how to do this. I recall having done this in my life.”
Q. Do you have COVID-19-related material in these shows?
A. Well, I just had a thing about how that’s all anybody talks about. It’s like, “It’s hard enough for people to get together, and then when you do get together, that’s all anybody wants to talk about is, ‘How come Business Y has certain rules and Business Z has different rules?’ And, ‘How come you wear a mask over here and you don’t wear a mask over there?’ ... Uhh, can we talk about something else?”
But other than that, I don’t have a lot of stuff about it, ’cause like I said: While I was doing nothing, I did nothing — and that includes in the comedy-writing world.
