By Christian Kallen
Sunday night, after the set has been cleared from the afternoon performance of The Bridges of Madison County, the Raven Theater will be taken over by a one-man show—David Nihill, an Irish stand-up comedian whose stock in trade is international miscommunication.
His appearance is timely, less than a week after St. Patrick’s Day—the subject of one of his better-known routines, when he critiques America’s celebration of March 17. (“It’s St. Paddy, not St. Patty—that’s a girl’s name,” he points out. “You can’t just go all Bruce Jenner on our patron saint!”)
More succinctly, “I am indeed from Dublin, Ireland, but I live in America now so I identify as Latino.”
As well as doing stand-up, Nihill is a motivational speaker, a TED-talk trainer, speaking coach and author of the best-selling book Do You Talk Funny? (the title of his show is “Shelf Help”). His comedy career is going well—he won the 43rd annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition in 2018, and he’ll be at the Raven Theater on March 23.
It’s the first comedy program at the Raven since New Year’s Eve, when four young comics (also from the San Francisco Comedy Competition) came to entertain the Healdsburg audience on the cusp of 2025. A great idea, but the result was an odd disconnect: the young (for the most part) diverse comics had a hard time connecting with the older white audience that is Healdsburg, and perhaps vice versa.
In that context, David Nihill might be a better match. The blue-eyed Gen-X Irishman left Dublin when he was 22 and, according to him, got “drunk on travel.” How very Irish of him. He has traveled widely, he assures us, to 70 countries or so, and describes his comedy as “cultural observations, attempts at language study, (occasional) international drinking session(s) and being a mildly confused immigrant.” Sounds like almost any tourist in Healdsburg.
Comedy Nite
Some venues in town have attempted comedy shows, with mixed success. The Furthermore Winery tasting room on Healdsburg Avenue tried a monthly comedy night for nine months last year, but had trouble finding the right formula.
“Unfortunately it was hard for us to build a following for comedy,” said Furthermore co-owner Chad Richard. “I would love to have made it work as we learned that there was a lot of great comedy talent eager to perform, but it was hard for us to build an audience for it.”
But Richard still hopes he can bring standup back when the time is right. “There were some real fun times, as I remember leaving there with my face hurting from laughing!” he said.
Coyote Sonoma on Mill Street also hosted several comedy shows last year, but its calendar is largely tribute bands this time around, with no comedians on the bill so far (although there is usually something funny about most tribute bands).
Poundstone and Ismo
The Raven is certainly not giving up on comedy, though: fans are looking forward to the return of Paula Poundstone, the slyly subversive contestant on NPR’s weekend quiz show Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me … It’s in her wheelhouse: she was also a panelist on the game shows Hollywood Squares and To Tell The Truth in the 1990s.
As a performer, she favors gaudy ties and insightful bon mots, often seemingly spontaneous, though usually honed to a sharp edge: she advocates a self-help group for compulsive talkers called Anon and On and On, and confesses, “I get in fewer arguments when I’m alone.”
The Raven show is still almost a month away, on April 18, but fans are advised to track down tickets soon, at raventheater.org or paulapoundstone.com.
A bit farther down the road, literally and figuratively, the Finnish comic Ismo makes his first Northern California appearance at the Luther Burbank Center on Friday, May 9. Like Nihill, much of his humor is that of the outsider in America, but his attention is often focused not so much on customs as on the American language itself.
The word “gnomic” might have been coined for him—a short, pithy, clever comment that also evokes the image of a gnome, which with his pudgy, slightly disheveled appearance Ismo somehow resembles.
The very idea of being from Finland is itself risible to some, but his best work is analyzing the quirks of language: being a badass is good, not bad, but being a dumbass is still dumb.
Going South
Even if comedy hasn’t found a weekly or monthly stage in Healdsburg, it’s done better in the larger city to the south. Every Friday night comedians from the Bay Area and beyond perform at Barrel Proof Lounge at 501 Mendocino Ave.
Digging deeper, it turns out the Barrel Proof is a regular comedy showcase. It also features new comedic talent every Tuesday night, and free stand-up comedy every Sunday at 2pm (with free popcorn, too).
A venue with a similar name, Barrel Brothers Brewing, in the Windsor shopping center anchored by Oliver’s, also hosts comedy shows. Formerly weekly, they are now only monthly—typically the first Friday of the month. The next show is April 4, from 8-10pm. Tickets are $15 in advance from barrelbrothersbrewing.com, $20 at the door.
David Nihill will perform at the Raven Theater on Sunday, March 23, at 7pm. VIP Tickets are sold out, general admission is $29 plus fees, at the Raven Theater, 115 North St. raventheater.org.
