There's No Place Like Home

It’s the festive season and Tim Minchin wishes he were at home. But then that’s an easy sentiment to have at 8am on a London December morning.

Where exactly to call home seems to be a question that’s preoccupying Minchin’s mind at the moment. A short 2005 British sojourn for the Australian musical comedian has turned into a six-year stay, and he and his wife Sarah are wrestling with the question of where to base themselves over the long-term. “Mostly since we came here, we’ve been able to be back in Australia two or three months of the year,” Minchin explains. “But now all of a sudden my daughter’s at school and we can’t do that family touring anymore. So we’re staring down the barrel of properly living in England, which is… interesting,” he chuckles.

“I guess I see our deadline for return as Violet — my oldest — going into Year 7, because I reckon you shouldn’t necessarily give kids that much to handle during high school. So I reckon we’ll either try and get back in the next five years, making it a ten-year turnaround, or we’re stuck here. We’ve stuffed ourselves, basically.

“We miss Australia at this time of a year, obviously — probably more than any other time — although I’m driving through London right now on the most beautifully crisp, blue sky, London winter morning. The traffic even seems to be flowing pretty well so far, so it’s easy to be optimistic now.”

Minchin is a man who’s still catching up with his success. Five years in England has seen the Perth native go from Australian curio to British superstar. “When I came to the UK I just assumed that there’d be millions of people doing what I do,” he says. “I came from Melbourne with Eddie Perfect and Tripod, and all these guys doing pretty high-end musical, satirical comedy. So I assumed when I got to England that there would be a wave of people like me trying to be satirical. Eddie and I got here in that first year and found that there weren’t a million of us. It was just one of those things where people thought what I was doing was different, because I developed it in a slightly isolated way. And in England, which is so crowded with comedy, having something different is worth its weight in gold.”

Minchin has leveraged the distinctive nature of his comedy into some impressive achievements. Theatre shows have turned into stadium tours, and he’s begun to expand his brief, writing radio shows for the BBC, hosting the first ever Comedy Promenade Concert, and co–writing ‘Matilda’, a musical based on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel. Focussing on a project such as ‘Matilda’ has allowed Minchin to get back to what he identifies with most: theatre writing.

“I had written music for theatre and musical theatre, but only in very small ways, and suddenly it was all happening again on a much bigger scale. I’m incredibly into it, and ‘Matilda’: having a musical on the West End is not something I thought would come about. I’m really, really keen to consolidate that and try and write another one and see if it’s a fluke, and test myself and all that.”

From all reports, ‘Matilda’ was far from a fluke, racking up strong reviews right across the British press. It was a relief for Minchin, who strongly identifies with the works of Dahl.

“I felt a lot of pressure, but it was simply pressure I put upon myself to not bugger it up,” Minchin explains. “Because he’s got such a unique style and it’s so easy to screw up — to make it too Disney or to make it too dark. You’ve got to get that balance, which is what Dahl was all about. But the guy who wrote it with me — Dennis Kelly — had already written a script adaptation before I’d even come onboard. And the script adaptation was so cool and so interesting and the director is so good, and the designers and the Royal Shakespeare Company: everyone was great and my pressure was to just not fuck it up. I just felt this huge pressure to not be the chump to muck up the work of someone else so on top of their game. The pressure was more for a non-music reading, largely self-taught guy – just that same Perth, slight chip on the shoulder, ‘I don’t deserve to be here but I’d better work hard’ thing,” he laughs.

It’s to territory more familiar that Minchin will be returning later this month, when he finally makes it back to Australia for round two of his ‘Tim Minchin Vs The Australian Symphony Orchestras’ concerts. The epic shows have already thrilled many after a sold out national tour in March last year, and now Minchin wants to seal the deal, playing to the converted but also inviting along anybody who missed all the action the first time around.

“It’s not quite as simple as looking forward to it,” he says. “It’s a big monster, and it’s scary and all that sort of stuff. But once I get into it I know I’ll absolutely love it again. Just the experience of rocking into these amazing orchestras and going, ‘Gidday!’ We’ve done it now and last time I had to earn my credibility from scratch every time I walked into a new city. Although, interestingly, in Queensland I’m playing with an orchestra I haven’t played with before, because I played with the Queensland Pops last time and I’m playing with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra this time, which I hope is cool by everyone. So I can’t wait to work with those guys; that’ll be brilliant.”

But while the orchestra may be different for Queensland audiences, Minchin is keen to stress that nothing else has changed.
“No, it’s exactly the same. And that’s very important for people to know, and I hope it’s clear. I tried to make it as clear as possible in the advertising that it was just the same tour again. It’s not in me to write more than one orchestra show,” he laughs.

“It’s a pretty massive undertaking. It’s purely about making sure that everyone who wants to see the show has seen the show. If fans want to come back again, that’s fine, but the main thing is satisfying your potential audience. If people want to see it, I’ll keep doing it.”

TIM MINCHIN VS THE QUEENSLAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA HITS THE BRISBANE CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE SATURDAY JANUARY 28.