Brian Regan was a familiar name to me, but I couldn't place a joke to the name. Also, his face looked somewhat familiar, but in that "Hey-don't-I-know-you-from-some-place" sort of way. As I continued watching Brian Regan: The Epitome of Hyperbole, I realized a couple of things. First of all, I realized that I was, indeed, familiar with Brian Regan from XM Radio, I had heard some of the jokes before, and his voice was definitely familiar, beyond that. Secondly, I realized just how much of Brian Regan's comedy is physical and must be seen to fully appreciate. Brian Regan has facial elasticity that reminds me of Jim Carey's earlier, heavily physical work. Sure, you can "get" his jokes when you hear them on the radio, but it's Brian Regan's rubber-like, over-exaggerated facial expressions that really help to "sell" the joke.
Not that Brian Regan's jokes need selling. He jokes that getting out of nightclubs and into a theater lets you do your smart jokes, rather than your more physical jokes, but he's come to realize that he doesn't have any smart jokes. Actually, some of his jokes are quite smart, indeed. Specifically, I found his "franchise in Pensacola" to be absolutely brilliant. I watched Brian Regan: The Epitome of Hyperbole with Psibabe and J.R. Nip and all three of us chose "franchise in Pensacola" as our absolute favorite joke from the show.
Many of the more physical jokes were also quite funny, such as when he makes a fool of himself at a party in "I Love Art!" and the over-exaggerated expressions in "No-Nonsense Judge" and "Mules/Sense of Humor." I also liked his take on "Cooking Shows" and his section on the law.
I also found the two special features to be interesting. First of all, there's the encore, which was just that - Brian Regan returned to the stage after the show was over and did a few jokes from his older material, basically taking requests. The Backstage Story offers a glimpse at what goes into planning a stage production of a stand-up comedy special, from lights and cameras to wardrobe selection. While this feature has a lot of mutual praises flying back and forth, it still provides an interesting look at how everything came together.
If you've never seen Brian Regan's act, you owe it to yourself to catch Brian Regan: The Epitome of Hyperbole. I was laughing the whole way through... not only that, just reading the list of jokes while writing this review got me laughing all over again.
