Tonight, The Rob Crean Show is dead!

There are few option for comedy on Tuesday nights in Boston, so it is with sadness that tonight we say goodbye to The Rob Crean Show tonight at O’Brien’s in Allston. Rob Crean and his Anderson Comedy cohorts started the talk/variety show in in March of 2008 (first guests, Crean notes, were Myq Kaplan, who just celebrated the release of his Vegan Mind Meld CD and his Comedy Central special at The Comedy Studio, and Comedy Studio regular Renata Tutko). Crean would do an opening monologue and welcome comedians, musicians, and other guest.

Crean reports the main reason the show is ending is that his producer, Lucas Lewis, is moving to Connecticut (to see Crean and Lewis talking about the show, take a look at this post from January of 2009). Tonight’s show will welcome back guests and regulars from the past two years, including Katie McCarthy, Kate Robinson, and Gretchen Gavett (doing their “Vagenda” segment), Matt Wilding doing his news segment “Wilding Wilding World,” Mehran, Josh Gondelman, and musical guest Bone Zone. Recent show regulars, Lucas Lewis, Adam Haut, Brendan Thomas Crowley, and Ryan Douglass.

Crean’s other regular show, The Gas, at Great Scott, will continue every Friday. Here are a few parting shots about the Rob Crean Show from Crean himself.

Will any elements of it get ported over to the Friday night slot at Great Scott?

Yes. We're trying to do more of the "segment" style sketches we did at Great Scott at "The Gas." We may even try to do a tighter version of the show at The Gas. It'd be a lot different, we wouldn't really be able to have a band, but we might get acoustic acts instead. We'll see.

Do you feel like you've accomplished what you wanted to do with the show?

Depends on the month really. Some shows go so well, and you leave the venue thinking, "that's exactly what I was trying to do," other shows have three people show up, after you've spent all month putting together brand new material that you're going to do once. That doesn't feel great.

Do you see more shows with a sense of community in the Boston comedy scene these days?

Good question. When I first started doing comedy, I felt like it was really hard to connect with people, and now I don't, but that's probably just because I've been around for a while now. I wonder if people who are new find the scene more welcoming now that I did. There were a few people who were really welcoming when I started though, namely Renata Tutko and Shane Webb.

Random Notes: Levy, Clarke, Crean, and Costello

Former Boston comic Dan Levy’s Comedy Central Presents premieres tonight at 10PM (see the clip below)… If you have HBO Comedy and you’re an insomniac, check out Rodney Dangerfield’s 1988 stand-up showcase special Nothin’ Goes Right at 1:05AM. The line-up features Cambridge’s own Lenny Clarke, as well as Bill Hicks, Dom Irrera, Robert Schimmel, Carol Leifer, Andrew Dice Clay and Barry Sobel. It repeats 2/18 at 4AM… The Off-Broadway comedy The Queen of Bingo comes to The Company Theatre in Norwell tomorrow (at 4PM and 8PM) and Sunday (3PM)… The line-up for Tuesday’s Rob Crean Show at O’Brien’s includes Anderson Comedy, Ahmed Bharoocha, MC Mr. Napkins, and Andy Ofiesh… Boston native Sue Costello has announced she will bring her one-woman show, Minus 32 Million Words, to Right Turn Live! in Arlington April 10 and 11.

Dan Levy’s Comedy Central Presents…

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Lenny Clarke from Nothin’ Goes Right:

Review: The Rob Crean Show at O'Brien's 1/13

O’Brien’s Pub in Allston might rightly be described as a “joint.” It’s at the end of Harvard Ave, down where most people pass on their way to the Thruway, and the neighborhood is a jumble of hip boutiques, cheap eateries, and car rental shops. It’s a place you’d expect to hear college bands blasting indie rock against the stinging weather outside, or warming up with some more sensitive folk rock. At least that’s the feeling on a cold January night.

But the second Tuesday of every month, O’Brien’s belongs to The Rob Crean Show, a talk and variety show hosted by Rob Crean of the Anderson Comedy sketch troupe. It’s a laid back, late night show. The start time is listed as 9PM, but the show’s audience is more into fashionably late. So by the time Crean starts his monologue around 9:40, there are only a few bodies mingling, glancing occasionally at the TVs behind the bar to check on the Bruins score. The crowd really starts to grow after ten, and everyone is still there at midnight when things are winding down.

Crean is an amiable, self-deprecating host. His monologue is surprisingly traditional for a room full of hipsters, a survey of news about President Bush’s last press conference and the type of offbeat items (a man sells his daughter for meat and beer, a wedding ruined by locusts) that late night talk show hosts love crack wise on.

The monologue is interrupted by Ripps McCoxen (character comic Chris Coxen, who seems to be on every underground comedy show in Boston), a 2-by-4 toting workout maniac who is looking for the band that’s playing next month’s show. Crean is game, and fine with playing the straight man as McCoxen explains how his flexing arm (his “gun”) is often mistaken for Cape Cod.



Crean and Anderson Comedy have put together a satisfying mix of sketch and stand-up (this month’s there was a DJ between sets instead of the usual band, so any judgment on that element is deferred for another time). The women of Anderson comedy perform a monthly parody of “The View” called “The Vagenda” (again a surprisingly traditional approach to sketch parody), which allows them to be catty in character.

Crean also interviews the acts when they’re done, which is where the self-deprecation comes in. Which you can see in this clip with MC Mr. Napkins.



Rhode Island comic Tim Vargulish, a relative newbie, has a promising set of sarcastic geek comedy. Mike Dorval previewed his funny, personal one-man show, Death By Chocolate, which premieres next month at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (more on that in February). And MC Mr Napkins (also fast becoming a staple of any cool indie show in this town) hit his usual hip-hop homeruns, even if he stumbled once or twice (on raps about pneumonic devices, no less).

Anderson Comedy hosts several shows around town, including Gas, which is every Friday at Great Scott, just down the street from O’Brien’s on Harvard Ave (they’ll host a Flight of the Conchords premiere party this Friday). They are aiming to create a new scene for themselves and other like-minded comedians and musicians. Here are Rob Crean and Lucas Lewis of Anderson Comedy, explaining it in their own words: