Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin has been super busy lately, keeping us entertained with his hilarious satirical songs and rocking out at UK festivals in all his guyliner-wearing splendour. However, he made time to have a chat with BBM about his upcoming appearance at Homebake in Sydney, his work on turning Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’ into a West End show, and why his life is (in his own words) “completely awesome” right now.

Hi Tim, how’s it going?

I’m good! I’ve had a bit of a rock star moment today, I had a sleep in after a heavy day yesterday.

What have you been up to then lately?

Holy shit! Well, as an example of a day yesterday I got up at 7 and went to the gym because I had to lose some weight for a role and I’m trying to keep it off, so I go to the gym all the fucking time like an idiot. Then I got into one of Mr Andrew Lloyd Webber’s cars which he sent for me to pick me up because I’m an arsehole and don’t catch public transport anymore. I then went to Jesus Christ Superstar rehearsals for seven hours. And then I went to a meeting at the Cambridge Theatre where my musical ‘Matilda’ is showing.

Sounds busy! Tell us about Californication, the TV show you’re working on at the moment.

I went to a little studio in Soho yesterday to do some overdubs for Californication and I needed to take all the swearwords out so they can show it on aeroplanes. So whenever I said “motherfucker” I had to say “melon farmer” – literally, “melon farmer”. And wherever I’d said “fucking” I had to say “freaking” and when I said “the guitar sounded like Jesus ejaculating into the Angel Gabriel’s mouth”, I had to change that quite dramatically!

That’s hilarious! How would you describe your life at the moment?

My life is completely awesome. But you’ll notice, when I told you what I’d been up to I didn’t say “I played with my kids” or “I helped my wife with the dishes” which is indicative of how my life is slightly complex as well!

So for ‘Matilda’ you wrote the lyrics and music. Can you tell us a bit about the process of that?

I just started writing songs and I wrote about ten songs in six weeks and made demos of them and played them to the director and producer. It took about another 18 months after that to complete. Eventually we opened it in Stratford and the press went apeshit and now it’s on the West End and going to Broadway.

What particularly drew you towards ‘Matilda’?

Well, I love Roald Dahl and ‘Matilda’ came out when I was already a bit grown up for that sort of thing. But I’ve always loved ‘The BFG’ and ‘Oswald’. They were my childhood books. But the Royal Shakespeare Company came to me with Matilda, which was just incredible because they had noted my comedy. What they didn’t know is, I started by writing for theatre, that’s where I come from.

So you felt quite comfortable taking it on?

Well actually in the early noughties I had already written to the Dahl estate to ask about the rights to ‘Matilda’ because I thought it would make a great musical. So totally coincidentally I had already had that idea. So when they called me into a meeting about it, I thought “you’re fucking joking me!”

You’re playing at Homebake in Sydney. What’s it like playing in your home country, is that different to playing anywhere else?

Certainly not in any significant way in terms of my comedy, because I consciously write comedy about what I consider universal. There are different things that go down better in different countries but basically I do the same thing everywhere and it seems to work because I’m talking about sex and death and God and love and the pope and shit.

So are you looking forward to performing at Homebake?

I’ve got a band and we’ve been doing festivals in England all summer and just treating them as rock gigs but all the songs are obviously stupid. So we’ll be doing that, which would hopefully work wherever you played it. The difference is it’s in fucking Sydney and I love coming home. It’s incredible that I’m still recognised as an Australian artist.

How has the journey towards becoming a recognised artist been?

No one had really heard of me before I moved to England but the fact is I was in Perth till I was 26 and I was in Melbourne till I was 30. I am an Australian act and it’s nice with Homebake to be put on a bill of incredible Australian acts. The great thing about my career at the moment is I’m sort of taken seriously but it’s all a bit of a joke at the same time. I love treading that line.
And that’s great, that’s what makes your music so unique.

How did you initially come up with the idea of mixing comedy with music and sometimes more serious themes?

To an extent I’ve always just written what comes naturally to me. I’ve always written silly songs from the age of about ten and I was always a bit of a goof with it, I was never very good at taking my emotions seriously. I couldn’t bear to write clichés. I just was never gonna write a song where you rhyme ‘love with dove’. My lyrics suit narrative, they tell stories. Even my non-comedy songs like White Wine in the Sun have a journey.

How would you describe the music you write?

It’s basically cabaret, it all tells a story. With my music, I can have my cake and eat it too.

If your career hadn’t gone down this route, what do you think you would be doing?

Through my 20’s there was always this fear, especially from my Mum that I was wasting my brain and that maybe I should go and do a teaching degree. I kind of agree with her in hindsight, I could have probably contributed quite well to society as a teacher but by the end of my 20’s I think I had decided that this was it and that I wanted to be an artist and write.

So, let’s talk about your style. You’re known for your crazy hair and ‘guyliner’. How did you come up with that? Do you have a stylist?

I do all my own make-up and hair! I was just sitting Melbourne doing these cabaret shows and you just get this sense that you want to create a version of yourself that’s a bit more watchable and a bit more memorable. Eyes are so important when you’re on stage, wanting to express something. I was used to wearing a bit of make-up anyway, at a stage level, not a rock star level. And then I got my curly hair straightened. There’s just something fundamentally funny about a dude sitting at a grand piano looking like David Bowie or something! Like a Beethoven/Bowie crossover, but then singing stuff like “fuck the motherfucker!”

What’s coming up in 2013?

I am going to do a play in Australia, which I can’t talk about yet. There’s also a possibility of doing more TV. I will definitely try to do another musical. There’s just so many cool opportunities that it makes me panic just thinking about it! I also want to make a studio album. Hopefully also being a father and a husband, instead of running around the world doing exactly what I fucking want to all the time!

Thank you so much for talking to us, it’s been great!

It’s been very nice to talk to you too, I hope we do it again sometime! Bye!

By Anna Tabrah