Tim Minchin is an Aussie comedian beloved for his fearless, often R-rated works of musical satire. In 2010, he reached a new demographic with Matilda, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book about a telekinetic young girl, her sleazy parents and her domineering school headmistress. On the heels of successful runs in London, New York and Australia, the show opens in Toronto this week with a new, all-Canadian cast. Minchin rang me up from the parking lot at DreamWorks studios in L.A. (More on that later.)
1. Writing a Matilda musical was a lifelong dream for Minchin
At 20, Minchin wrote to the Dahl family seeking permission to write a musical based on the book. They asked for score samples, and the mostly self-taught pianist with no experience writing formal musical theatre gave up until the Royal Shakespeare Company approached him with the project 15 years later.
“Although I was nervous about the quality of the people I was working with, and the responsibility, I didn’t hesitate.” Minchin’s own comedy catalogue is incisive, goofy and often bittersweet and the show follows suit, from his sardonic opening number about parents coddling their “miracle” children to the show’s nostalgic emotional centrepiece, When I Grow Up.
2. His Matilda is decidedly dark (and he wouldn’t have had it any other way)
Before he signed on to write the musical, Minchin had strong words for the Royal Shakespeare Company. “I was like, ‘Whoever you get to compose this piece, don’t let them fucking Disney-fy it,’ you know?” The magic of Dahl, he says, lies in his ability to balance light and darkness. “It’s very Scandinavian, really, the ability to tell these horrible stories while not burdening kids too much, while still making it funny. That’s his gift.”
Minchin’s goal was to lean on the story’s underlying themes of abuse and powerlessness while still creating a show appropriate for young audiences. “We wanted to make sure people who are 50 years old or drive trucks or have philosophy degrees like it as much as six-year-olds.”
3. He’s about to open a musical version of Groundhog Day
Minchin reunited with most of Matilda’s creative team to adapt the Bill Murray classic for the stage it opens July 11 in London. Once again, he was keen to explore the darker reaches of the source material. “The leap you have to take with Groundhog Day is that by the end he’s not a complete lunatic. You wouldn’t be able to not break.”
He also delves deeper into the minds of the characters. “Songs are soliloquies, and if you don’t think a story can sustain more depth, you don’t turn it into a musical. But I think Groundhog Day can sustain huge diving down.”
Pop culture nerds with an interest in time travel paradoxes, take note: though the show makes no canonical statements about how long protagonist Phil Connors was stuck in Groundhog Day, Minchin reckons it was about a decade, or “how long it would take to get good at piano if you did it every day for a few hours and you had a natural talent for it.”
4. … and after that, he’s got an animated movie coming out
Minchin is co-directing and writing the music for Larrikins, a 2018 DreamWorks feature with a starry all-Aussie voice cast. Coming from his “very spontaneous” live performance background, he’s finding the five-year production process on the film gruelling, though not all unpleasant. “Every day there’s bits where you just go, ‘Holy shit, that’s awesome!’ That’s the reason you can survive this long process. You go in and some animators will have done run cycles for a scorpion or a screen test for a singing emu.”
5. He refuses to listen to the Hamilton cast album
“I saw the play once and have never listened to it again, and have no intention of doing so,” he laughs. “But that’s only because when someone (Lin-Manuel Miranda, a long-time friend of Minchin’s) writes a piece that defining, it’s very dangerous. Most importantly, I wrapped Groundhog Day before I saw Hamilton, thank god. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”
The musical world, adds Minchin, had been waiting a long time for someone who could nail both the language of hip-hop and musicals in one piece.
“Not to put myself in the same league, but look at Matilda and Hamilton and Fun Home and In The Heights. It’s an amazing time for musicals. It’s incredible that so quickly it’s gone from ‘There are no good musicals any more’ to something completely new.”
Get more info about Matilda here.
nataliam@nowtoronto.com | @nataliamanzocco
