Tim Minchin - Australian, Piano Playing, Song Singing, Eyeliner Wearing Comedian!

My most recent musican/comedic discovery is the awesome Tim Minchin. He’s a piano playing comedian and performs all his jokes in the form of songs. He was and born in Perth, Australia in 1975, although he now lives in London with his wife and 2 kids. I couldn’t say how popular he is in Australia, but here in England he’s getting to that stage where people will say ‘yeah, I’ve heard of him’ but probably haven’t heard anything he’d written. He’s appeared on a couple of panel shows, been interviewed for talk shows including Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (twice) and played at several national events including the Secret Policeman’s Ball and an event at the Royal Albert Hall for the Tickled Pink Breast Cancer Fundraiser. He made a name for himself performing frequently at The Butterfly Club in Melbourne and since has been a huge hit at many different festivals including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer. Tim has also toured America and Canada, playing in comedy festivals New York and Las Vegas.

Admittedly it wasn’t until two days ago when I finally got around to Youtubing him that I realised how brilliant he is. He wrote a song for the Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2009 and watching that last week reminded me that I’d been meaning to find out more about him. I can’t seem to find many people that agree with me about how great he is, which is strange because I find him hilarious. Not to mention the fact that he has a very good voice and is a sensational piano player. Tim has a very distinctive look: Unwashed/unbrushed hair (he says he goes for about two week between washes), eyeliner (it makes his eyes stand out when he’s playing piano), and he does most of his shows barefoot because he says it makes him feel like he’s just lazing about at home ... his version of picturing the audience in their underwear.

I’m not usually a fan of people being overly, unnecessarily rude. But there is just something innately funny about him when he swears. I read one youtube comment where someone had written about him saying that “you hate the c-word but it’s perfectly acceptable when Tim says it.” It’s true. I really really hate the word, but when he says/sings it is just very funny.

I’ve included a couple of my favourite songs from youtube.

This song made me laugh so much the first time I heard it, and was the first Tim Minchin song I found when I searched for him on youtube. I like the way he pronounces every word so clearly. I don’t know what it’s called, well, other than speaking properly. Maybe over-pronouncing every word, something like that.

These are a few of my favourite lines from the song:

“With you in my arms I feel we could just float away. With the right kinda gas I might even try it some day.”

“You’re never sensitive or tickly, when I rub you my skin goes prickly. It’s known as static electricity, felicity when I’m kissing you.”

“You’re skin is so smooth, I couldn’t afford you with hair. You have all the holes real girls have got, plus one for the air.”

Tim Minchin describes this as a ‘nine minute beat poem.’ It is currently being made into a short animated film which, according to his website, will be released in October 2010. It is set at a dinner party he has attends with his wife where he is introduced to this woman named Storm, who has all these crazy ideas about the world and is clearly the most infuriating woman in the world.

My favourite lines:

“Alternative medicine is medicine that has either not been proven to work or been proved not to work. You know what we call alternative medicine that’s been proven to work? ... MEDICINE!”

“Try as a might a small crack appears in my diplomacy dyke”

“I’m like a rabbit suddenly trapped in the headlights of vacuous crap”

“Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition”

This is a song written about his wife. It’s the most offensive song ever and brilliant! It’s the sort of logical, unromantic thing that I would think when people talk about their relationships and probably the sort of thing I've actually said before. I can’t imagine what his wife said when he presented her with this song.

Favourite Lines:

“Your love is one in a million. You couldn’t buy it at any price. But of the 999,999 other possible loves, statistically some of them would be equally nice. Or maybe not as nice, but say smarter than you. Or dumber but better at sports ... or tracing.”

“It’s obtuse to deduce that I found my soul mate at the age of 17. It’s just mathematically unlikely that at a university in Perth, I happened to stumble on the one girl on Earth specifically designed for me.”

“I don’t think you’re special. I mean, I do, but you fall within a bell curve.”