Is there anything Tim Minchin won't do?
There's loads of shit I don't do! Um, probably the most obvious thing I don't do, is engage in the excesses of the lifestyle that are available to me in my.. uh, lifestyle! I don't take drugs, and I don't have sex with more then one person - which is a great disappointment to me, but it's a trade off, you know. I like, jumping off high things though.
Um, Lin- Well, the Powerhouse is quite high.
Hah! Fuck off..!
Linzy requested that I asked you what your favourite sweet is. And she said that if you complain that she asked you before, that you that you didn't actually answer her when she first asked.
What, what, well here you go, sweets?! Who eats sweets? I eat chocolate. Will chocolate do? I like biscuit-y chocolate things, like Kit-Kats and Twix.
That's good, because I made you cookies.
I should fucking hope so..
Oh god.. Hah.
Well, I don't like little sugary things. If they're there, I'll eat them, and they make me sick. If I had to choose, it would be maybe like, teeth? Or bananas? Even, uh, strawberry creams, I guess.
Ali: Good old traditional lollies.
Yeah, I love M&Ms actually, that must count.
How do you feel about being labelled as a 'world widely' received comedian? I think it may be a little false, as maybe people in Palestine don't like you?
Umm, I know a couple of Islamic Palestinians who like my anthem, and Jewish people!
Ali: We love that song, we were singing it on the city cat on the way here. When we nearly died falling off the back of the boat.
That's right! We nearly died singing Peace Anthem For Palestine..
Oh really? How!
We got horrendously splashed with river water, so we got up to move and this fat women swung a barrier into us and nearly knocked us overboard.
Damn fat women!
When are we going to hear new Tim Minchin material?
Umm, well you'll hear one new song tonight if you decide to stick around. But I don't know, I'm trying to go to America now, so it's all about a new market rather then new material. But I'm writing stuff all the time; I've written a couple of new songs for this movie, and I write songs for other shit. So it's like I'm always creating stuff, but I do find the comedy thing scary, you know? And also, I'm still enjoying what I'm doing, and this material is strong and I know it very well, and there's still huge amounts of people who haven't seen it, so I want to get some exposure before I go back. There's no point moving on.. and I'm quite sort of boring and disciplined I think, but I just keep doing it.
Ali: Do it until it's dead kind of thing?
Yeah, well especially if I'm interested in America. There's no point going with a new show, I go with what I know already, which is also what they don't, so yeah..
What are your comedic influences?
Don't really know. I never actually saw a stand up show before I started doing it myself.
Ali: What about comedic musicians you'd heard of?
Danna: Like Tom Lehrer...?
I'd never heard of him, either, until I started doing it. But I obviously know who he is now. Um, all those guys.. I mean, I guess I'd heard the Periodic Table song that Tom Lehrer did; I had a friend who used to play that, but I didn't really come to comic songs through comedy, I came to comic songs from pop. If you go back to Timmy the Dog, which some of the kids know, it's this album I recorded and you'll notice it being very satirical. So it's not there for laughs, but it has 'My Heart Belongs to an Eighteen Year Old Lesbian' and you know, there are songs on it that are just pushing that way and I sort of, eventually realised, that I'm good, and that I'm better at that. Though I still think I write nice songs as well, but there was a hole there and I seem to be able to do that, to... write funny lyrics. Obviously, there are other people that do it amazingly, like Tripod. And there's a million others like, Bill Bailey, David O'Doherty... Victoria Wood, and back, and back you go. I mean it's old time music hall really, it's been people going "anyee eenee aneee ahh" for years! One of my first songs I wrote for my very first show was called, 'Cunning Linguist, Good With My Fingers', which was deliberately a kind of old time, "Imma cunning linguist and I'm good with ma fingers!", because I was sort of acknowledging that it's old. But I guess most people and, even myself, am aware of my weaknesses as a musician, but most people who get to where I've got as a muso - take it very seriously. I've got to where I've got as a muso sort of by just.. I love music, but I don't take myself very seriously so, what I do perhaps is play a higher level of music then most musical comedians so it becomes something, a bit more impressive? Even if it's not as funny.. and then I've worked on the funny and now, that's kind of funny as well. So I don't know where I fit? But again, my comedic influence is probably more people who use lyrics well - like Ben Folds, and stuff recently.. But like the Kinks, and even the Beatles, Queen, all people who use lyrics, satirically actually, if you listen to their work. And also playwrights, because I come from a theatre background; so writers like Vonnegut and Salman Rushdie, and just people who know how to write really amazing sentences. Do I sound like a wanker? Yeah! Uh, yah.. Howzat?!