A Funny(ish) Interview With Tim Minchin About His Unfunny Concert Tour

Tim Minchin has just begun his latest concert tour, and he’s warning his audiences across the United States that it’s absolutely not funny. Charismatic? Yeah. Mildly amusing? Absolutely. OK, he might be willing to concede that, no matter what he says, it’ll still be “pretty funny” at the vey least. But don’t go in expecting comedy from the composer of Groundhog Day and Matilda the Musical. Funny is for the Tim Minchin of yesteryear. So when An Unfunny Evening with Tim Minchin and His Piano comes to your town this month, well, you’ve been warned.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How long have you been doing this concert tour now? I know it started in the UK.
Yeah. It grew and grew. I did 20 or 25 shows in the UK and then I did 50-something in Australia. I thought, “I must go to the US again,” just because I have an audience here and I’ve neglected it. I thought they’re not necessarily ready for the Unfunny show, because they haven’t really witnessed my progression, but they’ll just have to catch up. We’ll see what happens. Like, the show is still pretty funny, but it’s definitely not a comedy show. I’m just a mildly amusing, charismatic solo pianist now. Arguably mildly amusing and arguably charismatic.

Tell me about developing a set list for an American version of the show.
Well, I’m going to change it. But so much has happened since I was last in the US. When I left the US, I did a micro tour called Leaving LA with a band, and it was all right. People really liked it. I played some comedy stuff, but that was the beginning of what, some years later, was developed into the Back tour, which was an eight-piece band that went around the UK and Australia during Covid.

That was definitely a comedy show, but not as in there was structured stand-up or political or philosophical ranting. It was well over half not comedy songs. The designation between the two is unclear anyway, because it’s like everything in the world, it’s not a fucking binary. And my songs are always quirky. In the Unfunny tour, I do “You Grew on Me Like a Tumor” and “In Defense of the Fence” and the “Airport Piano.” These are quirky songs.

I think I’m going to open with “If This Plane Goes Down,” which is actually one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, which doesn’t necessarily correlate with my most popular songs, but I don’t think it’s self-indulgent to say that I just want to play the songs that I think are good songs.

How do you define good in this context?
The reason I think they’re good is that they’re storytelling songs. If you listen to “If This Plane Goes Down” for the first time, you’ll have a whole experience of that song. In that way, they’re a bit like comedy songs, because they keep revealing themselves and they have stories. You enjoy a song most after you’ve heard it 10 times, but I’m not sure my songs work like that. I’m very happy to play the audience something they’ve never heard before because I trust the craft. I’m a bit of a theatrical storytelling songwriter, obviously. So that’s what it’s about: Come with me on this journey, and if you’re not happy at the end, you can have your fucking money back.

As an audience member, I always find it more interesting to hear material from a composer’s back catalog than sort of “Piano Man” for the 20th time.
Yeah, that’s a different experience. And it is actually a back catalog in this. I’m playing songs that are 30 years old that I’ve never played live.

Has your view of your comedy changed over the years?
The weird thing about comedy is that I think I was OK at it. Maybe I’m still OK at it. But it’s not the form that I’m interested in. I’m interested in audiences laughing, but I’ve never been intrigued by the form of comedy. I’m much more interested in song writing and TV script writing. Comedy’s always felt like someone else’s fetish to me, so I’ve disconnected myself from it. I called it “Unfunny” deliberately to make sure I don’t bait and switch. I don’t want people to come thinking they’re seeing a comedian when they’re seeing a singer-songwriter.

Do you play your theater material?
In the Australian version, I played “Playing Nancy” from Groundhog Day and “Quiet” from Matilda. I think I’ll do that again, especially in New York. Those are songs where I can talk about why it matters to put yourself in other people’s shoes and why writing from the point of view of a woman or a child is an act of empathy.

I set up “Nancy” by talking about how Groundhog Day is a story about someone who has to learn that they’re not the center of the fucking universe, and that other people have their stories. Groundhog Day is a story about empathy. Me singing a song about what it is to be a hot woman on Broadway might confuse some of my audience, but that’s all right. They’re not going to walk out thinking, “It was a bit like that other guy.” I don’t think I’m like any other guy, really.

Have you got any new theater projects in the pipeline?
I have a bunch of things that I’m looking at that I won’t name, because then that becomes the story, and it probably won’t happen. I do struggle. I really want a musical-theater project that just grabs me in the way that Groundhog Day did as an idea. What should I do now? I don’t know. Movie to stage is so tempting all the time. I know such great narratives in movies, but I’ve kind of said I won’t do it again. But the two beset ideas I’ve got at the moment are movies and it makes me despair. It can’t be the only story.

How do you want people to view you after the Unfunny tour?
People still say, after the 25 years that I’ve been gigging, “Wow, you can really play piano.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m not here to fuck spiders.” I’m not an amazing pianist compared to jazz musicians and stuff, but I think people forget that the root of it all is my playing piano. I’m really enjoying just, like, properly sitting and playing.