February 2011

A few days ago, we told you that you could buy Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’, which is narrated by Tim, on iTunes for a measly £1.49.

Australians, you also have the option of buying it on DVD, which includes a cute 48 page hardback book, exclusive to the DVD release (non-Aussies, you can import it; it’s region-free)!

Have you been waiting for a reason to purchase this lovely animation, before shelling out your hard-earned money? Well try this one out for size!

‘The Lost Thing’ has won the Oscar for Best Animated Short!

The film was an outsider for the award and beat off competition from the favourite, Pixar’s ‘Day & Night’, as well as the other nominees, ‘The Gruffalo’, ‘Let’s Pollute’ and ‘Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage’.

In his acceptance speech, Tan pointed out the irony of the film being noticed, given its subject of things that don’t get noticed and also said that the award should really go to the cast and crew behind the film, including Tim!

Tim had this to say about it all:
“As many of you will know, Shaun Tan’s “The Lost Thing” won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Excuse me while I gush: I’m incredibly excited for Shaun. He’s an amazing, lovely, wondrous and wonderful man. His dedication to his work is an inspiration, and the fact that I was offered the chance to play my tiny role in this film is a profound honour. I love his work and can’t wait to see what he does next.”

Here’s the trailer again, so you can see exactly what all the fuss is about!

On the 30th March 2011 Tim will be hosting the snappily titled 25th Melbourne International Comedy Festival Opening Night Comedy All Stars Supershow… *pants* – no the other definition:
v. pants:To breathe rapidly in short gasps, as after exertion or attempting to announce an overly long show title.

This is the Comedy Festival’s 25th birthday bash, with some of the world’s best comedians taking to the stage. Tim’ll be performing and they put him in charge!

You can still get tickets here for this – we know, madness!

Remember how he opened the Gala in 2007?

The Gala will be shown on channel Ten, as in previous years, so we’ll announce the date it will air as soon as we know.

Last month Shaun Tan’s 15 minute animation, The Lost Thing, based on the children’s book of the same name, was Oscar nominated in the Animated Short Film category! Tim plays the part of the narrator and you can view some videos about the making of it here, including footage of Tim during a voice record session.

Maybe you’d like a chance to see it before the winners are announced at the awards ceremony, on the 27th February in Los Angeles. If so you have a couple of options:

If you live in or near London, the Curzon Cinema in Soho is screening the 2011 Oscar Nominated Shorts this weekend. The Animation Nominees are scheduled for midday on Saturday 26th February.  Visit the Curzon website for details for online booking.
or
You can purchase the film to play on your Laptop or iPad or iPod or iPhone on iTunes, iDeal if you feel so iNclined…hmm (Priced at just at £1.49)

Talking of iTunes, ‘Ready For This? Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall’ is now available from iTunes in Australia here.

Aussies! You can still request ‘The Fence’ on Triple J” in the following ways:

online: www.abc.net.au/triplej/requests/makearequest/
twitter: @triplejsr
call: 1300 0555 36
txt: 1975 7 555 (25¢)

Have you been sat around, waiting for Tim to release a recording of his new, fancy, orchestra show? You’ll like this then!

At the end of March, Tim will be releasing a recording of the show he did with The Heritage Orchestra at Manchester Arena on both CD and iTunes! (Don’t worry, we’ll remind you of this closer to the time).

Lucky Australians who are seeing him live in the next couple of months will be able to pick up a copy before anyone else at the merch stand!

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “I’ve already got a copy of the o2 one; why’s he releasing it again?”. Well here’s why: the o2 recording was a limited run, so congratulations if you managed to get yourself a copy!

It’s also worth pointing out that this release will feature only the songs and not the talky bits, making it perfect for your mp3 player!

You’ll be getting a copy once it’s released, won’t you? Don’t make me use the puppy-dog eyes…

Are you going to be in London for the Royal Wedding? Are you looking for something to do after the lovely couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton, have tied the knot? Then you might like to head on over to this little do.

Or, alternatively, if you’d rather gouge your own eyeballs out and eat them raw than hear another word about the whole bloody affair, then you might like to go to this as the perfect antidote to it all!

Or, you know, if you just quite like Tim and would like to see him in London with The Heritage Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall but didn’t like the ticket choice left on the 28th April (or you want to go again), then you’re going to like this!

Ahem… drum roll please.

A second date has been added at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, with The Heritage Orchestra on the 29th April 2011! Tickets are on sale now from the Royal Albert Hall website and TicketZone. Tickets should also be available from Ticketmaster, SeeTickets and TicketLine in due course.

Most of these sites still have tickets left for the first date too, if for some inexplicable reason you fancy coming along to both shows. Oh, and tickets are still available for orchestra shows in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Sheffield and Liverpool through those links and via the gigs page if you can’t get down to London.

See, told you you’d like it.

So yesterday we brought you Tim’s lovely new ‘Lullaby’ performed with part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, which aired on Ben Elton’s Live from Planet Earth.

Well the next day, Tim performed a cover of the Crowded House classic ‘Better Be Home Soon’, on Adam Hills in Gordon St Tonight on ABC1, so it seems only fair that we share that performance with you too:

Tim’s new single, a studio version of his nerdy pop song ‘The Fence‘, is now on iTunes. It tackles how things are not always as simple as we might first think and is typically clever and catchy. If you are in the UK you can find it here and if you are in Australia go here. However, as it is now available worldwide you could simply search your iTunes Store and don’t forget, if you wish, you can be among the first to review it on there.

This is a unique studio recording with a band, rather than how you might have heard it, or will hear it, with an orchestra. Finally a song short enough for radio play too, so let’s start the ball rolling and request it.

Tim says:
“Aussies, if you want to hear the song on Triple J (and do me a favour), you can request it to be played on Rosie Beaton’s Super Request in the following ways:

online: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/requests/makearequest/
twitter: @triplejsr
call: 1300 0555 36
txt: 1975 7 555 (25¢)

tx”

Radio playfulness.

If you missed Tim performing on Ben Elton’s Live from Planet Earth on Monday you probably fall into one of three categories:

1. You don’t live in Australia.
2. You didn’t know it was on.
3. You turned off halfway through.

Have no fear though, we can tell you that he performed a rendition of a new song ‘Lullaby’ with part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (and he didn’t screw up)! We can go a step further than that as well and provide you with the video so you can see and hear it for yourselves! A note though, if you are trying to stay spoiler free for the new show, you’d best not watch this.

And if that hasn’t made you want to buy tickets for the rest of the UK orchestra shows and the few Australian orchestra shows that still have tickets available, then I don’t know what will!

Have you missed seeing Tim on your TV? You’re gonna love this week then!

Tomorrow, Tim will be gracing Ben Elton’s Live from Planet Earth. This will go out on nine at 9:30pm, and as the title suggests, it’ll be broadcast live! The show may not have got off to the best start last week, but surely it’s worth tuning in just to see if Tim slips up or not!

The following day, Wednesday, he’ll be on Adam Hills In Gordon St Tonight. You’ll need to tune your tellybox into ABC1 at 8:30pm to see it. He”l be on with the supermodel and actress Megan Gale and the director Peter Weir. Neon Trees will also be performing.

You’ll be watching both shows right? Or at the very least be recording them to watch later, yes? Good.

Tim’s going to Boston, Massachusetts on Saturday 4th June 2011. He’ll be performing at the Wilbur Theatre at 7pm for your pleasure.

Tickets go Onsale to the General Public on Friday, 11th February 2011 at 12 noon EST and are available from Ticketmaster.

Pst! read on…

If you want to take direct action: there’s a PRESALE on right now, via the same link and the password is: WT9.
(Oh and Angry Feeters knew about this even earlier…just saying)

The show will be an exciting blend of brand new songs with a few well loved classics. Tim will be joined on stage by his grand piano, iconic dance moves, wildly teased hair, gently calmed eyebrows, infeasibly skinny jeans, natural aplomb and his enormous…sense of occasion.

How can you resist?

The Chortle Awards were announced last night and Tim won a ‘Best Musical or Variety Act‘ and ‘Best Tour‘ for his orchestra show, to go with the ‘Best Musical or Variety Act’ award that he won last year!

As he’s in Australia at the moment, Tim sent the organisers a nice message, saying: “I wish I could be there and thanks to everybody. I am very pleased, lying here on my bed on the edge of the West Australian desert listening to frogs, to know that I beat the Boy With Tape On His Face and the rest, as they are all incompetent bastards.”

The Boy With Tape On His Face, however, still won ‘Best Breakthrough Act’ while Karen Koran won the ‘Offstage Contribution’ award. A full list of the winners can be found on Chortle.

Thank you to all who voted, now if wouldn’t mind all pitching in a few pence each because I think he’s going to need a bigger mantlepiece…

We can confirm that Tim has been confirmed as appearing at the Sasquatch Festival, at The Gorge Amphitheater in Washington on the 29th May, 2011.

Other acts playing over the four day event include Axis of Awesome, Reggie Watts and some actual rock bands, like The Foo Fighters and Death Cab for Cutie. The full line up can be found at SasquatchFestival.com

Four-day passes are on sale now and day tickets go on sale on Valentine’s Day, you know, in case you want to make an, erm, romantic gift out of it.