Tim Minchin: Ready for This

If you don’t already have a crush on Tim Minchin, what’s wrong with you?

Tim Minchin
The Palais

Friday 4 December 2009

If you don’t already have a crush on Tim Minchin, what’s wrong with you?

As nearly 3000 people screamed their love for Tim at The Palais on Friday night, it was hard to believe that is wasn’t that long ago that I heard about this guy who plays the piano and checked out his comedy festival show – and fell a little bit in love.

Tim may be from Perth, but he started doing gigs in Melbourne, so we are claim him as ours. Today he tweeted ‘I heart the fuck out of this place’ and we heart the fuck out of you Tim.

Some discovered him early at the Butterfly Club, but the rest of us found this barefoot, affable, kind of nerdy, kind of genius at the Hi Fi Bar and, as he won some Green Room Awards, we looked forward to intimate shows every year where we would buy his CDs and despair over our cheap merlots why only us super-intelligent, arty, lefty theatre goers can see how great he is.

Then he went to the UK and they refused to let him go. He sold out The Forum last comedy festival, but came home again to play The Palais. His name was up there in plastic letters right next to Glen Campbell’s! The only difference was that Tim’s also had a red SOLD OUT sign.

Our Tim sold out the The Palais! He sold out the huge and wonderful deco palace of faded elegance filled with the memories of sweating international rock stars. (The Palais is where you go when you’re too big for the Prince and not yet miming with a fake circus at a sports stadium.) Our Tim is an international star!

Nearly 3000 people came in from the suburbs or dared to venture from the north side of the river to see our Tim, have cake in Acland Street, remember throwing up on the Luna Park roller coaster, and swear when they get a parking ticket because they really do have inspectors checking until midnight in St Kilda.

The noise of those nearly 3000 fans screaming from stalls, lounge and balcony is something that Tim deserves.

He hasn’t changed. His shows are tighter and he’s much more comfortable in a big space, but he still makes a huge room feel intimate, makes his most rehearsed moments feel fresh and still sings, beats and chats about the things he cares about. When work comes from passion and heart, it doesn’t matter if anyone disagrees. Of the sold out Palais crowd, I’m sure that a few folk wanted to share their faith with him or read his palm and calm him down with some Reiki – but differences of opinion mean nothing when we all want to drink white wine in the sun with Tim and his family.

I’ve been humming ‘Canvas Bags’ every time I go to a supermarket for over three years now and my heart still goes out to Guardian reviewer Phil Doust every time I hear Tim’s ditty to the journ-a-loust who must have been having a really shitty day and just didn’t get our Tim (but, as my surname rhymes with weird, I’m glad that the definitive anti-reviewer song has already been penned.)

If you saw Ready for This earlier in the year, this return show is extended and more cohesive (and the bit about his daughter and the pennies has gone – it was inspired, but I can see that it’s not a joke for everyone). Tim’s off to Adelaide, Auckland and Perth in the next week and there are more shows in February for Adelaide, Melbourne, Newcastle and Sydney. All his venues have red plastic SOLD OUT signs, so you’re going to have to book – and get tickets for everyone you know.

Bookings and information: www.timminchin.com/gigs

Touring in December and February