During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rick Bryan remembered seeing electronic signs on the highway telling people to not touch their face.
Now that the idea was in his head, Bryan described, he couldn’t help feeling like he suddenly needed to touch his face.
During his routine, the Denver-based comedian shared funny anecdotes about being an essential worker during the pandemic, the challenges of parenting teenagers and visiting sketchy restaurant drive-thrus.
Bryan was part of the March 4 lineup at Tommyknocker Brewery & Pub’s dinner and comedy show, a new event the brewery put together with Idaho Springs resident and comedian Susan Udero.
Udero, who performs under the name Miss Bubbles, has lived in Idaho Springs almost five years, but travels frequently to perform and produce comedy shows.
She recently felt a need to put together shows for the mountain community, and reached out to Tommyknocker Brewery. Even with two weeks’ notice, the show sold out, and about 45 people packed into the event room in the brewery’s easternmost storefront.
Udero and Tommyknocker Brewery’s banquet coordinator Tami Mathena said plans for another dinner-and-a-comedy-show event on April 1 are in the works.
While the brewery is too busy to host events like this in the summertime, Mathena said they might be ideal during the slow seasons. She floated out the idea of hosting a magician at some point, saying, “We’re trying to expand (the use of) this room, and do more fun things for the locals.”
The March 4 show — which had a lineup of Miss Bubbles, Bryan and Denver-based comedian Ron Ferguson — certainly featured more adult content in terms of joke topics and language. There were a few moments in the night where risky jokes straddled the line between bold and off-putting. Several tables seemed to be enjoying themselves, perhaps a little too much, which drew a comedian’s attention and ire.
Between dinner and the show, Eric and Lisa Whiteman described how they saw the event advertised on social media and thought it looked like fun.
The Whitemans, who live in the South Spring Gulch area but used to live in Denver, said they frequented comedy shows in the city before. The two described comedy shows as a much-needed burst of levity and a break from the usual routine.
So, going to a comedy show close to home was convenient and something different to do, Eric and Lisa explained.
Similarly, Carol and Tom Newsom described how they moved from Evergreen to Miner Street a month ago. They bought tickets to the event, because they wanted a night out to eat dinner with friends and meet new people.
The Newsoms said they went to a similar event at the Center for the Arts Evergreen recently, adding they’d be open to attending more comedy shows in the mountain community.