Tim Minchin refuses to be categorised. So what do we call a man who tells jokes, challenges political tribalism and writes songs that move you to tears? Eva Wiseman meets the man behind Matilda the Musical – and much more
I had not expected to cry. I had not expected to cry three times. A screening of a kids’ film, 8.30 in the morning, a musical for Christ’s sake, and out of nowhere, I was crying. “Shall I tell you why?” asks Tim Minchin the next day, leaning forward over a precarious little table of tea. And then he tells me and I have to hold my breath to stop myself crying again.
Minchin is a musical comedian who dissects ideas of romance, monogamy and faith during “logical philosophy lectures described as cabaret shows”, in eyeliner, big hair and bare feet. In 2009, when he was 35, the RSC invited him to collaborate on an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and his career shifted to include composer of multi-award-winning musicals. His life shifted with it – he moved with his family from Melbourne to London to LA (where he spent four years working on an animated film that was rudely canned), and then back to Sydney. The show was a hit – a proper dark and artful phenomenon. Today, Minchin has flown in to talk about the film, a vivid and gorgeous adaptation by Minchin and the theatre team, starring Emma Thompson as a hulking Miss Trunchbull.
