Brian Regan

Comedian Brian Regan enjoyed widespread critical praise, the hard-won respect of his fellow stand-ups, and a diehard fanbase purely through live performances, without the benefit of a hit television series or feature film. That Regan remained so popular for such a lengthy period - he rose to popularity in the early 1990s and reached the top of the club and theater circuit a decade later - was made all the more impressive by the fact that he worked "clean," which is to say that his material was entirely free of objectionable language and subject matter. Maintaining that stance - a personal decision rather than one generated to attract audiences - over such a long period of time required near-Herculean discipline and imagination, which helped to make him something of a "comic's comic" in stand-up circles. If the praise and popularity had any effect on Brian Regan, he appeared oblivious to it, preferring instead to devote his energies to one of the hardest-working and most popular stand-up careers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.