According to Chortle: The UK Comedy Guide, Jarlath Regan is the kind of comedian you want to take home to meet your mother, he’s that charming. Now I haven’t met your mother, but I’ve sure met mine (nearly every day for the first 18 years of my life) and if your mother is anything like mine, she prefers her comedians to be funny, as opposed to charming.
Don’t get me wrong, Regan’s show wasn’t totally void of humour, he managed to ruin a first date for one lucky pair, show slides from his book: How To Break Bad News, which is a series of greeting cards crafted for the situations Hallmark have failed to provide for to date, and he gave the mandatory nod to New Zealand. Several nods actually, and yes- the term “Sheep Shaggers’’ was indeed used, possibly more than once.
Regan had a very definite structure to his show, one that seemed to have been round the block a few times and while he made a valiant effort to mix things up with a little improvised humour- hell, they guy could have thrown in some jazz hands, maybe a little soft shoe but it would still have felt like I was watching re-runs of The Jarlath Regan Show.
His pitch was dominantly at the 30+ crowd, preferably married or at least soon to be. So if this is you then the man probably seems like a genius, he even boasts more ideas and advice than www.groomgroove.com . Also if you’re one of those creeps who doesn’t move their head while boogying down the Big K, Regan can help you out there too, work on getting rid of that she-looks-so-great-dancing-like-that-and-I’ll-be-wearing-her-skin-in-a-minute face and replacing it with “The Destination”… he’s even invented his own dance move.
And yet- I’m still hesitating to recommend this show to anyone. Perhaps after a few more drinks his attempt at youth appeal (Justin Beiber humour- yes he went there) might have been amusing. We laughed, clapped some and then he left the stage.
There wasn’t an encore.
I’d save the $26 and buy Dylan Moran’s What It Is on DVD.
Jarleth Regan
3 – 8 May 2010, San Francisco Bathhouse