News Archive

Last month, Tim hosted the 25th Melbourne International Comedy Festival Opening Night Comedy All Stars Supershow. (Yes! – it feels like the longest show title ever to type too)

He performed with some members of the Melbourne International Symphony Orchestra and introduced many of the best local and international comedians, including Mark Watson, The Pajama Men, Arj Barker, Danny Bhoy, David O’Dougherty, Mick Molloy, Jeff Stilson, Tommy Tiernan and many more.

The show will be aired on on Channel TEN, on Wednesday 13th April 2011, 8.30pm – 10.45pm.

This is only being screened in Australia I’m afraid.
Aussies, you are just so lucky, lucky, lucky…
You really are! If you tune in do come back and tell us all about it.
x

We announced it over a month ago, but now the time has finally come to tell you that the double-CD album, ‘Tim Minchin and The Heritage Orchestra’, is now available for you to buy (kinda)!

The tracklist looks a little something like this:

Disc one

1. I’m In A Cage
2. Rock n Roll Nerd
3. Cont
4. If I Didn’t Have You
5. Thank You God *
6. You Grew On Me
7. The Fence

Disc two

1. Prejudice
2. Lullaby
3. The Pope Song
4. Cheese
5. Beauty
6. Dark Side
7. Not Perfect
8. White Wine In The Sun

The album is available worldwide for you to buy on iTunes now for a rather reasonable price and there’s a nice link for you here. And a reminder, also available on iTunes is the studio version of The Fence.

If you’re in the UK, the CD version will be available from this here website from the 15th April and also at Tim’s forthcoming orchestra shows, while Australians are able to buy it from shops, as we mentioned earlier.

If you’re elsewhere, you’re going have to import it from one of the above options, but it rather pretty.

Oh, and we’ll post this nice medley of clips from Lullaby, Dark Side and You Grew On Me again in case you missed it the last time and want to try before you buy.

*also known as Sam’s Mum

UPDATE (18/05/11): This album is not currently available on iTunes in the US. We’ll update this once it’s available again.

I’m incredibly excited that DC Turner’s wondrous animation of my large and ranty beat-poem, Storm, has finally been released online.

Two and a half years in the making, it is the result of epic dedication from DC and from the producer, Tracy King, who has driven the whole thing from day 1.

The film was long-listed for an Animated Short Film BAFTA and has played to great acclaim at festivals, but it hasn’t actually been completed til, well… today actually.

Tracy says:
“When we first started Storm we had no idea how big it would become, but it was always our intention that this would be a free film for YouTube, and I’m so proud that that day is finally here. One of the best ways to get people to listen is to give them something to see, and I like to think of Storm as a gateway for ideas as well as a piece of entertainment, which is why we wanted to make this film. The fact that we were still making tiny changes a few hours before it went live is testament to the passion that has gone into the film and the justice we want to do to the source material. While I still maintain the best way to see Storm is to see Tim perform it live, I hope you enjoy our animated version as much as we enjoyed making it.”

Dan says:
“Making Storm has been an exhilarating, terrifying experience, and I am endlessly grateful to everybody who worked on the film.
Now stop reading this and watch the film.”

If you want to learn more about how this all came to be, try here. I hope you love it as much as I do.

xt

People of the UK, we hope you’ve missed hearing Tim’s dulcet tones over the radio, or seeing his big face on your televisual box, as there are some forthcoming events of that variety this very weekend!

It all kicks off tomorrow, when Tim will appear on Ian McMillan’s The Verb on Radio 3 at 9:15pm, alongside Blake Bailey and bits of Galician poetry.

On Saturday, Tim will be on Christian O’Connell’s Jon Holmes’s Radio 5Live show sometime between 9am and 11am, shortly followed by an appearance on Vernon Kay’s Radio One show.

The next day, Tim will be on Something for the Weekend on BBC2, 10am – 11:30am, cooking up a treat alongside Arlene Phillips! If you’ve got anything you’d like to ask him, the show are appealing for questions via email or Twitter

Perfect timing if you were starting to think he’d left you for Australia! Oh, and if you aren’t in the UK, don’t forget you can still listen to BBC Radio with their iPlayer.

If you live in or near Seattle, WA, USA, here’s the heads-up that Tim will be splashing down in person, possibly in a smart waistcoat and certainly with a piano and hair teased into utter confusion, at The Neptune Theatre on 24th June 2011.

Tickets go on general sale on Friday 8th April, 8PM PDT and you’ll find further information and ticket purchase opportunities here.

OR there’s a presale, on right now if you go here and use the password/promo code ‘band’.

Hey, this show will be so rock, there might even be an Eddie Vedder impression that gets really deep…

If you’re in Australia, here’s a little something special for you! For the first time ever, anywhere in the world, some of Tim’s CDs are being properly released so that you can buy them in actual shops!

That’s right, you’ll be able to walk down to your local Sanity, JB HiFi or other record store of your choice and buy a Tim CD from them! Or, you could, you know, buy it from their websites instead.

The two albums being made available initially are 2009’s ‘Ready For This?’ and this year’s ‘Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra’. Both of these have been released on Navel Records and being distributed by Inertia Music.

If you’re elsewhere and wanting a copy of the orchestra album, we’ll hopefully have some news for you on that shortly but in the meantime, here’s a nice medley of clips from it to whet your appetite.

So last Sunday’s live broadcast of Tim Minchin vs the SSO was marred by gremlins in the speakers (no, not Gizmo; he wouldn’t hurt a fly and besides, he’s a mogwai) – a more technical explanation of which can be found here along with an apology from the ABC for the problems.

Well, the good news is that it will be broadcast again this Sunday; same time and same place as last time (8:30pm, ABC2). This time, though, they’ve rounded up the Stripe and his gang and are holding them in cages so that this showing will go out glitch-free!

The call for inviting your elderly relatives over to watch this still stands. Hopefully they’ll enjoy it more now that they’ll be able to hear Tim!

There have been quite a few requests from you Americans for Tim to come to Chicago, which would make today your lucky day!

Tim has been confirmed as part of the line up of this year’s Just for Laughs festival in Chicago! He’ll be playing a huge five nights at the Lincoln Hall between 14th and 18th June, with each show starting at 10pm. This will be the longest run of shows Tim has done in America apart from his off-broadway run in New York in early 2008, just in case you’re the type of person who likes useless trivia.

The shows look to go on sale on Saturday at 10am via eTix on the venue’s website.

I won’t add any more razzle dazzle or all that jazz, but suffice to say, you’ll definitely be wanting to getting your bear paws on these tickets! (… sorry)

UPDATE: We’ve just heard there’s an Internet pre-sale, Friday April 1st at 10am for one day only. You can access this advance ticketing goodness via the Just For Laughs, Chicago website here and the password is “laughs”.
Shell x

Re: Pre-sale problems: In case you have not seen the comments by Linzy or me here or on Facebook – they are aware of the problem and are working on fixing it. We will let you know as soon as we hear anything helpful. Sx

They seem to be on sale here ok.
Some are finding ‘laughs’ works, others ‘witty’. We suggest you try both.
Shell x

The Royal Shakespeare Company have confirmed that their world premiere production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, A Musical, is to transfer to London’s West End in autumn 2011, for an open-ended run.

Tickets will go on sale in May when further exciting details of the venue, performance dates and casting will also be announced.

In case any of you have yet to notice the pretty tab at the top of the page we’d like to point you to the sparkly new Matilda page on this very website. It will give you the the story so far as well as videos and handy links, including to the dedicated Matilda, A Musical website where you can sign up for future news directly from the RSC and to the Matilda sub-forum on Tim’s official fansite if you’re keen and a little bit naughty…

UPDATE: For those watching the ABC2 broadcast, the audio problem in the first half was caused by the delayed ABC transmission. The second half is being broadcast live and there’ll be no problems. Linzy x

This is starting off as a reminder for you lucky Australians. Tim will be on your televisions tomorrow night at 8:30pm, with the Sydney Symphony, performing his latest show live from the Sydney Opera House! Mind you, he will only be on your television if you’re tuned into ABC2 so make sure that you are! And in case you missed it, we did a post about this, with a few more details in, here.

And as if you Aussies weren’t lucky enough, afterwards, ABC2 will be showing Rhian Skirving’s doco, Rock n Roll Nerd, about Tim’s rise from obscurity. Should be interesting to compare and contrast the two!

Oh, and Tim would really appreciate it if you could refrain from uploading clips from the live broadcast to YouTube etc as it goes against the spirit of watching this unique event, and also, you may have seen Tim recently tweet, “comedy = surprise,” so clips up whilst he is still touring the show can ruin that factor for those yet to see it.

Besides which, the double CD that was recorded in Manchester, with all the songs from the show on it, will be unleashed in a few days, both here and on iTunes. Oh, and there should be a DVD due by the end of the year too.