Tim Minchin brings eccentric comedy stateside
Comedian and musician Tim Minchin is coming to the United States for a stateside stop.
Dark humor · Tim Minchin presents a foreign sense of comedy, characterized by its sharp criticisms of religion, to U.S. audiences, hoping to embrace the focused group of interested fans he has accumulated. - Photo courtesy of Secret Service Publicity
“I’m incredibly lucky to have this career in three continents — Australia,” Minchin said. “Europe and North America. This whole American experiment is trying to reach out to the audience I have here. I’m not trying to get huge. I’ve just become aware that I have people that are interested in my material over here and want to reach them.”
Sharp criticisms of religion, expletives of a motley range of topics, condemnations of monotheism and the like; these are the interests that fuel the fire of the comedian and musician that is Tim Minchin.
With his disparate subject matter comes an eclectic crowd; his shows in the United Kingdom and Australia attract a rather diverse audience, ranging from elderly couples to young kids.
His content is not the only thing that’s eccentric. Minchin’s Jack Sparrow-esque eye make-up and teased red hair contrast his coattails and piano, enabling him to get away with controversial sayings, as he states with ease and confidence, “They might be shocked by a few bits, but I structure the show so they’ll enjoy it throughout.”
He does limit himself when he thinks jokes go too far. He stopped performing “Fat Children,” which cautions parents to not feed donuts to their obese children, after his first tour, in an attempt to avoid insensitivity.
“If I can’t justify a joke in my own moral sphere, I don’t do it,” Minchin said. “I can say ‘f**k the pope’ because it’s a self-justifying idea that makes a clear statement about the pope.”
Unlike some satirists, who focus on specific political events or people, Minchin focuses his content on more general taboos, such as religion. These generalities allow his material to be timeless and applicable to any situation. Some might call it strategy but Minchin simply sees it as “dumb luck.”
“Politics is like pop culture because it’s fleeting and impersonal and not particularly interesting to me,” Minchin said. “Unless you count cheese as pop culture, because I talk about cheese.”
Minchin now lives across the pond but hails from the land down under. He says viewers attend his American shows because his material deals with pursuing a naturalistic worldview.
“The main problem is they all know all my material and are rabid for more,” he said. “It’s really good fun.”
People were surprised when Minchin said he would start touring in the United States because they thought a U.S. audience would not appreciate his religious-based material.
“I said even if only 10 percent of Americans are godless, I bet there’s more if you scrape below the surface,” Minchin said. “These people are the people that will find me.”
As for his growing popularity, Minchin credits his presence in the United States to YouTube, where many fans were introduced to him through videos such as the animation of “Storm,” a beat poem that works as a manifesto for skepticism.
“Without YouTube I wouldn’t be touring America,” Minchin said. “It’s fantastic for me because it’s where people have found my work. I can attribute all my success in America from the Internet.”
Minchin acknowledged such success can be a double-edged sword for foreign entertainers because their material isn’t always available internationally.
“I can’t blame people if they torrent if I’m not providing an opportunity for them to buy it,” Minchin said.
He released his first Region 1 DVDs, which work in American DVD players, on Sept. 27, and they are now available for purchase online — evidence of Minchin attempting to be more internationally accessible.
Though Minchin has toured the United States before, he said this was the first time doing so without his wife, whom he’s been with for 20 years, or his two children.
“I’m not particularly happy on it, but there’s much worse things,” Minchin said. “I could be in the navy or a coal miner or an astronaut.”
Tickets are sold out for Minchin’s Los Angeles show Wednesday at Largo.
I saw Minchin on Paul Provenza’s “The Green Room” on Showtime and was really impressed (check him out on the season finale episode singing about brain “endorphines”). I like how he views the world from a rationalist’s perspective and and infuses his comedy with elements of the absurd. Hope to see much more of him in the future.