Festival headliner Tim Minchin gets serious about his superstardom with Lauren Murphy
I’VE BEEN stood up. Again. Journalists, of course can expect such behaviour every now and again, but when the perpetrator is someone who makes a living out of being funny, it’s no laughing matter.
When Tim Minchin eventually does call, all is forgiven. The jetlagged Aussie comic – now London-based with wife and two kids – spent half of yesterday in bed after an all-night transatlantic flight. He’s been spending more time in the States recently, where he admits that he’s still something of a “cult” figure. On this side of the pond, or at least in the UK and Ireland, he’s better known as the wild-haired, eyelinered guy who plays piano barefoot and has a penchant for singing his mind. His comedy certainly pulls no punches, with bountiful songs about his firm stance on atheism, the absurdity of alternative medicine and cleverly inverted takes on political correctness.
Like his rise to fame here, his popularity in the US is building gradually, with more and more fans flocking to his shows after familiarising themselves with YouTube footage. Of course, that means more and more “crazies”, as he calls them, too. In Dallas last weekend, he found hiring a piano more difficult than expected when he received an email from the rental company urging him to cancel the show after watching some of his clips online. “Go back to Australia,” it read. “We do not appreciate Tim Minchin in TX. Love in Christ, Norbert Paula.”
“I’ve kind of accepted the challenge,” Minchin laughs. “The show I’m doing in Ireland next week is very similar to the show I put together for America – it’s got more ranty material than any show has previously, ‘cos that’s what the Yanks want. And I think it’s what the Irish want, too. It’s a very interesting time for you guys, economically and philosophically.
“It’s like the whole culture’s had the rug slowly pulled out from under it over the past 40 years, and I think it’s good that people have anger, but also incredible humour in the face of it. And I think it’s a good time for an artist like me to be coming to Ireland and saying ‘Don’t you hate it, how people believe in bullshit?’.”
Minchin's humour, entwined in the irreverent songbook that makes up his shows, is undoubtedly an acquired taste for some but there's no question that the Perth native's motives are to provoke intelligent debate rather than meaningless shock. Once describing himself as a 'gateway drug to scepticism', he's perhaps best known for his religion-focused songs, which include The Pope Song("If the pope had a disco nobody would go, because he wouldn't allow gays") and I Love Jesus, I Hate Faggots.
Minchin was raised Anglican, but doesn’t remember ever being convinced by the idea of a higher power. “I guess my discovery of comedy came at a period in my life where I was really starting to delve into science. My dad’s a surgeon and I think I’ve got a science-ready brain, in a way, even though I’ve always been arts-focused.”
Minchin’s background in English, philosophy and science explains his way with language and logic, but his musical background is harder to pinpoint. He says that he was more of a ‘sporto’ as a kid, preferring hockey and beach activities to music lessons. In fact, his love of music only took hold in his teens, when his older brother forced him to learn piano chords to accompany his guitar-playing. Going from reluctant composer to playing with an orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall – as he did last year on his biggest tour to date – is a considerable jump.
“Yeah, that DVD is coming out soon, and it’s a massive sort of scale – it’s musical comedy at its most financially wasteful,” he chuckles of his progression to arena shows. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. The megalomaniac inside is going ‘Fuck yeah!’ and the Perth boy is going ‘Run away!’”
For a man whose debut at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in 2005 was one of the first times he’d performed in public, and who is curiously self-deprecating about his musical ability, Minchin has come a long way.
There's no sign of his steamroller pausing for breath any time soon, either; he has already written the music and lyrics for a stage adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda,which will premiere next month. He plans to record a "serious" album at some stage as well as a return to the boards in Australia in the next couple of years, and recently signed a deal with a Los Angeles-based animation company to write songs for films.
“I’ve got heaps I wanna do,” he says. “I just really wanna have a long and varied career, and I would like to perform live forever. But I think I need to find a balance between putting pressure on myself to write new material. It’s actually a very strange time of my life right now, because it’s the first time I’m actually going ‘Wow. I’ve got a musical opening in the West End, and that’ll maybe pay the bills for a bit, so fuck – what do I do?!’ What do you do when all of your dreams have come true? And I’m not quite sure what my next move is, but I’m sure I won’t be sitting around. It’s fucking amazing, it really is. Six years ago, every door was closed to me. I couldn’t get agents, I didn’t know what I was doing and I was playing in shitty bands, and every door I leaned on was locked. And now they’re basically all open.”
- Tim Minchin plays the Galway Comedy Festival on Oct 28 and 29, Vicar Street on Oct 30 and the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival on Oct 31. 'Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra: Live at the Royal Albert Hall' is released on DVD on Nov 14.
