Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) has announced that Tim will be joining the stellar line-up of Western Australian artists at Home, a huge, free, one-off outdoor theatre spectacular, reflecting on what the Western Australian landscape and concept of ‘home’ means to its artists.
Home is a narrative driven concert, celebrating the beauty of the Western Australian landscape, culture and community.
Directed by Nigel Jamieson in collaboration with Noongar elder and artist Dr Richard Walley, the performance will feature an outstanding roll call of Western Australia’s most acclaimed and imaginative artists and creatives including Grace Barbé • John Butler • The Drones • Robert Drewe • Wayne Freer • Guy Ghouse • Gina Williams • Iain Grandage • Kavisha Mazzella • Lucky Oceans • The Panics • Pigram Brothers • Kim Scott • Shaun Tan • The Triffids • Voyces • The Waifs • Dave Warner • Western Australian Youth Orchestra • Tim Winton and more …
Lotterywest Festival Opening Home 7.30pm on 13th February, 2016. (90 minutes, no interval) Langley Park, East Perth Tickets: FREE EVENT
Tim:“I can’t wait to come home for Home. It is incredibly exciting and moving to be involved in a home-grown event on this awesome scale, to be working with the likes of Nigel Jamieson, my old friend Iain Grandage, and the great Richard Walley, and to have the privilege of sharing a stage with such an extraordinary line-up of West Australian performers and artists.”
For more information and updates including, location and travel guidance, head to the event page on the PIAF website here.
Hopefully you’ve already spotted that Tim and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) have been working with MND Australia on The Fading Symphony, a campaign to raise awareness and funds: for research into finding a cure, to support people living with MND and for global projects fighting ALS/MND. (If you’ve not yet seen the video then you might like to pop over here to watch it before reading on).
Motor neurone disease (MND), sometimes also referred to as ALS, is a progressive terminal neurological disease with no known cure or effective treatment. Each day in Australia two people die from and two people are diagnosed with MND, which can strike men or women, young or old, from any country, race or demographic. People living with the disease progressively lose the use of their limbs and the ability to speak, swallow and breathe whilst their mind and senses usually remain intact.
The Fading Symphony sees Tim and the SSO, at the Sydney Recital Hall, performing a moving rendition of Neil Finn’s Crowded House hit Don’t Dream It’s Over. As they play, they poignantly illustrate the progression of the debilitating symptoms; highlighting the physical impacts metaphorically through deteriorating performances by the artists. As Tim and the orchestra fall silent a donation is requested, following which the orchestra comes back to life and plays on, flourishing to an uplifting crescendo.
Tim: “I love playing with the SSO, I have aways loved this song, and I loved this idea the minute it was presented to me. Music has the capacity to make us emotionally connect to stories like nothing else. Except, perhaps, silence.”
Please donate $5 (or £s or €s!) at thefadingsymphony.com/donate to help the fight against MND and watch Tim and the orchestra heal and play on!
In this ‘Behind the Scenes’ video, Tim and Kirsten Harley talk about the impacts of MND and the importance of staying positive when faced with adversity. The videos are part of a short playlist, so it’s immediately followed by the ‘Making of The Fading Symphony’ with some performance clips and Tim talking about the project.
The Fading Symphony was created by independent Sydney creative agency The Works for MND Australia. Don’t Dream It’s Over was arranged and conducted by Benjamin Northey.
Guy Patrick, creative lead at The Works: “What has stayed with me is meeting Dr Kirsten Harley who lives with MND and is a board member for MND New South Wales… Tim Minchin also met Kirsten and was inspired and moved by her attitude on life.”
Carol Birks, national executive director of MND Australia: “Our goal is to help people currently living with MND lead better, longer lives and continue to work towards finding a treatment and cure for this indiscriminate killer.”
Tim recently reunited with the fabulous Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at the Sydney Recital Hall, for a haunting performance of Neil Finn’s classic hit, Don’t Dream It’s Over. Here’s what happened:
Available to download worldwide, from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and all global digital stores, with CDs available from HMV and Xtra-vision, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Remember, if you’d like to support these charities more than once you can gift the song on iTunes like this.
Produced by Stephen Macken, the single was recorded at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, by the Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS) and features Shane Filan and Grace Lee and a chorus of over two thousand – the largest ensemble choir ever gathered for a charity single in Irish chart history. Grace, from the Isle of Man, has had ten heart procedures for Congenital Heart Disease and suffers from Chronic Lung Disease.
Jack and his mum Stacey
The recording is dedicated to the memory of Jack Lam from Castlebar in Co. Mayo, who sadly passed away just a month after submitting his ‘When I Grow Up’ photo. More about Jack and the recording can be found here.
Earlier this month, Tim joined Mark Watson, Dynamo, the Tredegar Town Band, Sara Pascoe and many more, for a memorable first Old Vic Variety Night. More details and the mailing list, for a heads-up about future Variety Nights, can be found here.
Tim and his band performed White Wine In The Sun, Prejudice, Cheese and finally Seeing You, from the stage musical adaptation of Groundhog Dayhe’s currently developing. The latter, a spectacular finale with his band joined by backing singers and the Tredegar Town Band, was met with a standing ovation.
Here are a few glimpses behind the curtain at Tim rehearsing and performing.
Tim’s song When I Grow Up, from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi-award winning, Matilda The Musical, has been released as a charity single and will be available to download/pre-order from just after midnight tonight (00:01 20th November) worldwide from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and all global digital stores. There will be CDs available from HMV and Xtra-vision, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, from the release date 27th November, 2015.
Produced by Stephen Macken, it was recorded at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, by the Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS) and features Shane Filan and Grace Lee and a chorus of over two thousand.
Here’s an exclusive early look at the official video, with a brief introduction by Shane Filan. Please enjoy, sing along, buy, play, share and gift!
If you choose to watch on youtube.com, you’ll find additional information underneath the video about Grace and others involved in recording the single and you’ll see why the recording is dedicated to the memory of Jack Lam. There’s a little more information and background and why Stephen Macken chose the song here and some rehearsal footage here.
Shane Filan, Grace Lee and the Association of Irish Musical Societies’ Children’s and Youth Ensembles will launch the single with a performance of the song on the TV3 Toy Show – 8pm on Friday 20th of November, so you’ll be able to watch that if you’re in Ireland.
The four young actress taking on the role of Matilda are (from L-R) Dusty Bursill, Tiana Mirra, Alannah Parfett and Ingrid Torelli.
They will be joined by the full Original Australian Adult cast from Sydney, including the principals (in alphabetical order), Marika Aubrey (Mrs Wormwood), Daniel Frederiksen (Mr Wormwood), Elise McCann (Miss Honey) and James Millar (Miss Trunchbull).
Matilda’s classmates will be played by Charli Bowers, Freya Cantwell, Keely Corcoran, Jack Coyne, Jeremiah Duncan, Shyla Farrugia, Tahlia Gerosa, Cooper Guinea, Jazi Hall, Kushinka Jayewardene, Andre Karabajakian, Kathleen Lawlor, Campbell MacCorquodale, Thierry Mendoza, Chloe Ngo, Chihana Perera, Adam Punsalang, Kyle Reynolds, Orlando Schwerdt, Hudson Sharp, Daniel Stow, Alistair Touliatos, Caleb Waterworth, Tahlia Williams and Mackensie Young.
The Melbourne run will commence mid-March at the Princess Theatre and tickets are on sale now from Ticketmaster!
To learn more about the Australian production of Matilda the Musical and hear some previews of Tim’s songs for the show, visit their website. If you want to know all about the show’s journey from a small theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon through to being a worldwide smash hit, you can have a read of that here.
Tim’ll be getting into the ChristMAS spirit next month Live at the Ace, in LA!
There will be no warm-up acts. Tim’ll be joined on stage at 8pm by his trusty, long-suffering piano, less trusty long tresses and some natty attire.
Tim’s keen to emphasise that the show is not part of a new tour but will be a fun couple of hours of favourite songs, frolics in tight pants with maybe a couple of songs he penned for his musicals. All this to satisfy Tim’s desire to hit the stage (and his piano) and his audiences’ desire to watch him do that with aplomb.
All profits from this show will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders.
The Theatre at Ace Hotel
929 South Broadway
Los Angeles, CA. Tuesday 15th December, 2015, at 8pm
Doors Open: 7pm
Price: $35.00 TicketsOnsale: Thursday, 19th November, 2015, at 10am PSThere.
UPDATE (22nd February, 2016): We’ve just heard that this gig raised $10,000 for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. Thank you!
On Monday, Tim and writer Dennis Kelly were awarded honorary degrees at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts graduation ceremony. They each became an Honorary Doctor of Letters in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the UK’s arts industry.
A selection of photos of Tim and Dennis at the ceremony can be found in the graduation gallery on Mountview Academy’s Facebook Page and for a little more detail pop over to their website.
The ceremony was held at the Cambridge Theatre, in London’s West End, where their production of Matilda the Musical has been enjoying a highly acclaimed run since 2011. Both Honorary Graduates gave contrasting and entertaining speeches at the event. Dennis spoke first, if you’d like to listen to them in order. Tim’s speech, in the form of a free verse poem, concludes with a masterclass in bending down elegantly in tight trousers and you’ll find the full text below.
“You’ve Always Wanted To Be an Actor
You’ve always wanted to be an actor,
And your friends and you say to each other,
“I want to act because I think story-telling is vital to culture”, or
“I want to act so I may hold up to society a mirror”,
And there’s truth in that,
But let’s be honest, you really want to act
Because it’s really fun, and you quite like being clapped.
So you go to Drama School,
And you learn about shedding your skin
And inhabiting your something something
And you get your head screwed up by Stanislavski
And then recalibrated by Mamet
Or the other way round,
And you learn to scuttle across a stage like a lizard
And to caw like a crow,
And to let yourself go,
And to sing and tap,
And to cry on cue,
And you make all your mistakes,
You have sex with your classmates (and then y’stop doing that),
And you learn to find the rhythm of the bard,
So that every iamb shines but doesn’t creak,
And you work really hard, and change the way you speak
And you… become slowly aware of these relentless waves
Of self-confidence and self-loathing that come and come and come
(And you think the waves will smooth out when you have success
But they don’t and they won’t so the only solution is to
Worry about them less.
Just by the way.)
So you graduate drama school and that’s amazing, brilliant, amazing
And – as you should be – you are proud,
And at the graduation ceremony you watch two clowns
Standing on the set of their mutual fluke
Reading speeches that they wrote the day before,
And you think, “if those idiots can succeed, anything is possible”,
Which is true, in a way,
But not in a way that should necessarily give you confidence,
Due to the randomness… of… well, Dennis.
Look at him.
God does clearly play dice with the universe.
And so, off you go and you get an AGENT. Yippee!
And – oo – let’s say, just hypothetically,
You’re really good-looking.
You’re beautiful.
And you’ve been blessed lets say with hot genes,
You stay slim easily
You go to the gym easily
You have those well-spaced eyes and high cheekbones
And one of those lovely big mouths that kids seem to have these days
And you have found that if you stand still in front of a camera
And look just past the shoulder of the DOP,
And think about a…. cup of tea… or a tricycle…
And the light hits your well-spaced eyes and your high cheekbones just perfectly,
Then we, the audience, will read into your stillness
Grief, or pride, or piety. (Wow)
And you’re also an amazing actor…
A truthful, intelligent actor,
Hard working and skilled etc
But that’s not so much the point,
Because… B eauty.
So you get a role in an indi film.
I mean first you do an advert for cheese,
And a co-op at the King’s Head
(which, although you don’t know it at the time,
Will be the last theatre board you ever tread),
And then a guesty on Coronation Street, yay
And then an arc on Holby City, hooray
And… THEN a supporting role in an independent film
That ends up at Cannes and is seen
By a Rudin or a Weinstein,
And gets distributed across the USA
And so [click] you sign with an agent at CAA,
And a manager at, I dunno, somewhere,
And they tell you that you “should move to LA
Because you will have more opportunities here”,
But it’s clearly because they
Won’t get paid if you’re doing a play
At the fucking National. Will they?
(Just by the way.)
So you do. You move to LA
And you’re sharing a bungalow in Silverlake
With a Canadian actress who thinks everything happens for a reason,
Which you also believe, because no one has ever pointed out to you
That that is a stupid thing to think. (Just by the way)
And as is the tradition,
You struggle for a year,
Coffee shop job between auditions
And then, yes!
You get a well-paid job playing a sexual assault victim on
Two episodes of Season 25 of
Law and Order – SVU
And you buy an SUV and you move into a mid-century-
Modern rental in West Ho,
With a friend of a friend who has a band:
Four banjos, a cellist, and a DJ –
Who once played Coachella
And a YouTube vid of one of their audience members
Choking on a corn dog went viral so now they’re quite popular.
And then, yay, during your second pilot season in LA,
When you’re missing the drizzly comfort of the UK spring
And your mum’s on the phone telling you to
Come home, darling, just come home,
You audition for a new NBC “dramady” –
For a “character who doesn’t say too much in the pilot, but-
Great script, and 16 great writers, and-
They’ll definitely write more for your character after the pilot, so” –
After six-call backs and weeks of anxiety
And after being filmed with the star to test for your “chemistry”,
You get offered the part,
And you –
Little you, bullied in high school for having spotty skin,
Told by your primary teachers that you need to pull your head in
And stop showing off,
Little you who lived with 4 people in a flat in Wood Green,
And worked and worked on your craft and you didn’t give in –
You have a role in a fucking US network television pilot,
And you do not hesitate to sign it:
The contract that says if it goes to series
You will be committed 39 weeks a year for up to eight years.
And yay! They make the pilot,
And it gets picked up,
And it goes to series,
And so…
Your weeks start with a 4:30am pickup on a Monday,
And the crew is great and the cast is great
And although half of your day is
Spent in your trailer,
And it’s more boring than you’d foreseen,
You’re in pretty much every scene,
Generally doing something with a computer
Slash Bunsen burner
Slash non-specific screen
In the background,
So you’re always on set.
And inevitably, by week’s end,
Production has fallen behind 6 hours,
So you don’t actually get
Off set
For your weekend until 2am on a Saturday morning,
And you sleep all Saturday,
And on Sunday you learn your sides,
And reset, rolling, speed… and action!
And that’s fine.
Cos the series is a hit!
And you’re on the telly,
And the newspapers in the UK
Write about you saying some thing you don’t remember saying,
And the Daily Mail comments on your hair and your abs and your arse,
And when it goes to Season 2, and the ratings go higher,
You get a pay rise and now you’re making a million quid a year,
And you are proper famous,
And you are friends with proper famous people,
And you know Sandra and George and Bono and Elon Musk,
And you buy a fenced-in house in the hills with a pool,
And you’re single, but, y’know, that’s cool.
You find it hard to meet people, because, y’know,
They come to you with so many assumptions about who you are,
About your hair and your abs and your arse.
And then after season 3,
When the show’s not quite so hot,
And the ratings start to drop,
The network gets the writers to simplify the script,
Cut expenses, cut the complex bits,
And on they forge, churning out the eps,
Motivated by nothing but $$$,
And every year, the ratings go down a bit more,
The show loses it’s edge a bit more,
The ideas get a bit more
Repetitive,
And your character is always saying the same shit,
And you can’t remember the last time
You cared about a line,
The last time you expressed an idea
That had any value. What. So. Ever.
And one Sunday, you have some of your famous friends around,
For a drink,
These beautiful, kind, generous Americans,
You do adore them …
But whom you always feel you can’t quite reach,
Personalities like a left-over pudding that has cling-wrap
Pulled so tight across the bowl
That you don’t notice it’s there at all until you go to dig in
And your spoon bounces off.
And so you’re sitting by your pool with these kind, cling-film friends,
And the thought enters your head
That you’d really like to walk down the street to have a drink at a pub,
But you can’t, because you’re too famous to leave your house.
You can’t leave your house.
This is not a warning, to be clear,
If that becomes your story, you’ll be sweet.
I wrote that because in ten years,
When those of you who don’t end up being
Knightly, or Laurie, or Cumbers,
When you have done a hundred jobs,
And, like the boxer, you
Carry the reminder of ever glove that blah blah blah
You’ve borne the slings and arrows of outrageous… tweets,
I hope you remember that in our game,
Success doesn’t mean what they think it means.
And even if you get the type of success
That they think is success,
It won’t necessarily be for the best.
The people I knew at your age,
The folks with whom I built sets and rigged lights
And acted and drank and dreamed,
They are…. Everything.
Mike is one of the finest drama teachers you would ever meet,
Jenny gathers the memories of the elderly and turns them into plays
And Brian makes puppets,
And Christine runs a theatre company that tells stories of refugees,
And Tommy is a vet,
And Iggy makes music with Aboriginal Elders,
And Trossy is a mum,
And Justo has a millions children, and paints, and is a barrister
(oh you should hear his voice, it’d be like being defended by Lear)
And Toby’s a pirate,
And Bec runs an events company, and…
To state the obvious
I observe among my friends
No correlation
Between wealth and happiness,
Or fame and happiness.
The happy ones work hard, generally
And they are generous, generally.
And they generate, generally, valuable ideas.
Which is your job, (just by the way):
To put into the world valuable ideas.
So look for stories that are worth telling
And lessons that need teaching,
And tell them and teach them,
And stay passionate,
And I’ll see ya at the pub.
As in previous years, all November, December and January profits from the sale of Tim’s beloved sentimental Christmas song, White Wine In The Sun, will go to The National Autistic Society (NAS) which provides support, information and services for people with autism and their families and campaigns for “a better world for people with autism”.
Along with the UK iTunes link above, here are a few more of the places you can download the 2012 single internationally: iTunes , Amazon (UK),Amazon (US) and 7digital.
If you have it already, you may fancy gifting it, along with the socks, jocks or chocs…
Wednesday 24th February, 2016
7:30pm
Ages 17+ Tickets are $20.80 – $36.00 and available here.
This’ll probably be a show featuring vintage satirical lyrical favourites and maybe a song or two from one of Tim’s musicals: Matilda (already on in the West End, Broadway, Sydney and touring the US) and Groundhog Day (opening in London’s West End, 2016 and then heading to Broadway in 2017).
On the 25th of October, the Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS) recorded Tim’s song When I Grow Up, from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi-award winning, Matilda The Musical, featuring Shane Filan and Grace Lee and a chorus of over two thousand.
The charity single will be released on Friday 27th November on iTunes, Google Play and all digital stores. There will be CDs available in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Here’s a little peek behind the scenes at the rehearsals, with an introduction by, RTÉ radio and television presenter, Ronan Collins:
The official music video will be released on the 20th November, with the single available for pre-order on that date too. There’s a little more information and background on the choice of the song here.
The very first Old Vic Variety Night, next month, sees Tim joining comedian Mark Watson, magician Dynamo and the Tredegar Town Band for a fun-filled evening of music, comedy and magic! More acts are yet to be announced.
The Old Vic’s first Variety Night will be on Sunday 15th November at 7pm Tickets go on General Sale on Friday 30th October at 12 noon.
Ticket pricing, priority booking and further details can be found here.
Tim worked with Matthew Warchus on Matilda The Musical and they are currently developing a stage musical adaptation of Groundhog Day together. When he first became Artistic Director at The Old Vic, Warchus announced his intention to open up the theatre for variety shows on Sunday evenings as part of his inaugural season. Looks like he’s starting off with a real humdinger!
UPDATE (12/11/15) Further acts announced: comedian Sara Pascoe, comedy magician David Williamson, Momento Violin Duo and The Beatbox Collective.
Tim’s guest staring in Australian streaming service Stan‘s first original production, No Activity.
The six part Australian comedy series, stars Patrick Brammall and Darren Gilshenan. It follows two police detectives, Hendy and Stokes, killing time on a stakeout, waiting for something to happen. It doesn’t. Genevieve Morris and Harriet Dyer are unlikely dispatch officers, Carol and April, while Dan Wylie, David Field and Sam Simmons make up the disorganised crime element.
Tim plays Jacob, a security guard working at the docks, tasked with looking out for anything unusual, so he can tip off the cops.
All six episodes will be available from just after midnight on Thursday 22nd October, 2015.
A little more detail about the production and casting can be found in our earlier announcement here.
On the 25th of October, at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, a new charity single will be recorded.
Over two thousand, three hundred voices will join together with a sixteen-piece orchestra to record When I Grow Up from Matilda The Musical. Tim’s gladly given his approval and royalty free use of the song.
Stephen Macken, producer of the hugely successful charity single Tiny Dancer, has once again teamed up with the Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS) to create something very special for this Christmas.
The recording will take place as part of the gala concert ENCORE! celebrating the 50th anniversary of the creation of AIMS and will feature former Westlife star, Shane Filan.
Stephen Macken says: “I chose ‘When I Grow Up’ as the AIMS charity single because of its deeper meaning in the context of its portrayal of the simple childhood dreams and ambitions that we all once projected into our adult lives, eating sweets all day, climbing taller trees, no longer fearing monsters, and how those dreams and ambitions are the same for all children, including those who face an uncertain future due to illness and who may never live to see their fulfillment. It’s that context that makes the song so special and meaningful.”
The single will go on sale at the end of November. It will be a global release on all download stores and there will be CDs available in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Jack and his mum Stacey
The recording is being dedicated to the memory of Jack Lam from Castlebar in Co. Mayo. Jack died in November 2013 from complications arising from his treatment for Neuroblastoma. He was part of the original social media campaign set-up by Stephen Macken to create awareness of the recording, but his passing just a month after submitting his ‘When I Grow Up’ photo so shocked and saddened the team that the project was temporarily postponed. Now, Stacey McHugh, Jack’s mum, says she is honoured that Jack will be remembered this way and that if Jack’s story will encourage support for this project, raising funds that might help save a child’s life, then it makes her happy. Stacey has shared the wonderful news that she and her partner, Tsung Lam, are expecting the birth of a baby this Christmas week, within days of Jack’s seventh birthday.
