On Aug. 17, deadpan comedy fans across the world rejoiced upon watching the trailer of Nathan For You Season 4. The trailer showcases Nathan Fielder, America’s favorite part-time business adviser, as he opens an asexual computer repair shop, attempts to take down Uber and reconnects with a recurring guest who claims to be a Bill Gates impersonator despite looking and sounding nothing like him.
Leading up to the show’s Sept. 28 premiere on Comedy Central, Fielder is in the midst of a sneak peek marathon. So far, he has performed in Vancouver, Canada, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, with Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Brooklyn, New York, still to come. Fielder will be live Sunday at Lincoln Theatre in D.C. for a sneak peek showing of Season 4 of Nathan For You.
The Lincoln Theatre’s website, which was almost certainly influenced by Fielder himself, says he will field audience questions yet doesn’t offer the comedian much praise. “The screening will be followed by a Q&A discussion that will include several off-the-cuff jokes by Fielder, who’s a mediocre improviser,” reads the promo.
Thirty-five dollar tickets for a sneak peek and “mediocre” improv is enough to prove the cult-classic status of Fielder and his show. First airing in 2013, Nathan For You is based on the comedian, who claims to have graduated from “one of Canada’s top business school’s with really good grades,” offering business advice to real-life struggling business owners.
His advice is at best unorthodox and at worst moronic. Often, the ideas go viral before the episode airs. On Feb. 10, 2014, an article appeared on Eater about Dumb Starbucks, a coffee shop parodying Starbucks that seemingly hatched out of thin air in Los Feliz. On July 29 of the same year, the “Dumb Starbucks” episode of Nathan For You premiered on Comedy Central. It had been Fielder who concocted the master plan, going solo on the endeavor after failing to convince an East Hollywood coffee shop owner to convert his own store.
Doors for Sunday night’s show open at 6:30 p.m., and the show is expected to begin at 8 p.m. Pregame by streaming some episodes on Comedy Central’s website. I recommend Season 1, Episode 4 in which a gas station owner tells Nathan that it is healthy to drink the pee of any person under the age of five.
