On Sunday, 1st February 2015, the Broadway production of Matilda the Musical will be putting on an autism-friendly performance!
The show is part of the Theatre Development Fund’s Autism Theatre Initiative, which aims to make theatre accessible to children and adults on the autism spectrum, as well as their families.
There’ll be a few slight adjustments to the production, including the reduction of any jarring sounds or strobe lights focused into the audience. In the theatre lobby there will be quiet areas and an activity area, staffed with autism specialists, for those who need to leave their seats during the performance.
The last few tickets can be booked exclusively, at a reduced rate, through the Theatre Development Fund’s website, which also includes several guides to help personalise the experience.
The festival plays across several Austin venues and the Cap City Comedy Club. Other Headliners include: Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Marc Maron, Wanda Sykes, John Mulaney, T.J. Miller, Pete Holmes and Ron White.
Single tickets for the headliner performances will be available from the 19th February.
Tim will be on your telly Christmas Day at 9pm on BBC2.Tim Rice: A Life In Song sees a host of special guests celebrate the life and work of the great lyricist at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
Michael Grade hosts and is in conversation with Tim Rice, teasing out the stories behind some of the best loved songs from stage and screen over the last five decades.
‘Our Tim’ joins Alexander Armstrong, Gemma Arterton, Rob Brydon, Roger Daltrey, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Rufus Wainwright amoungst many others. They are accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Mike Dixon. Full details and line-up are to be found here.
Tim opened the show with, Heaven On Their Minds from Jesus Christ Superstar*, on the night, so it might be worth tuning in early if you’re sitting down to watch it on the telly box in your paper hats.
Otherwise it’ll be available on iPlayer shortly after it airs and via the BBC RED Button: 10:25pm until 6:00am.
It’s finally time to announce something that’s been on most North American fans’ wishlists – region 1 DVDs!
Comedy Dynamics released So F**king Rock Live and Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra on streaming site Hulu (and Netflix for the Heritage Orchestra show) earlier this year and now they’re releasing both shows on DVD!
The DVDs are being released on 20th January 2015 – a bit too late for Santa to leave them under your tree, but we’ve heard that they make equally as excellent birthday presents!
They’re available to preorder from Amazon (US and Canada) from the following links:
Due to the phenomenal demand for tickets for the show on the 23rd, causing it to sell out in minutes, Tim will be doing a second and final date On The Steps of the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday 24th February, 2015.
The rest of the tickets will go on general sale at 10am on Friday 12th December, 2014, here.
If you didn’t have tickets to the 23rd, we hope this other date will do…
So, if you’d like to see Tim take over the steps of the Opera House with his band, shake out that glorious mane, bust some moves and entertain you wildly with concert versions of his greatest hits (and if you’re lucky maybe a song or two from Matilda and/or his new musical Groundhog Day) best get your wiggle on to grab tickets!
Tim was interviewed on The Morning Show last week and at 07:48 he talks briefly about what you can expect from his show on the steps of the Sydney Opera House and whether he’ll choose a swanky new costume or appear in his “birthday suit”…
It’s been a few years since Tim visited San Francisco. So, having heard your numerous pleas, he’ll be performing at the Nourse Theatre, San Francisco, CA, at 7pm on Sunday, January 25th, 2015!
This will be vintage Tim; delivering a heady mix of clever, satirical and often beautiful songs, along with his musical athleticism and a ferocious hairdo.
Tickets to this special evening, at the newly renovated and reopened Nourse Theatre, are likely to sell fast so be sure you’re adequately prepared to snap them up at the presale:
Get excited Australia because there’s one hell of a show coming your way!
Your favourite fashion icon / mock rock star / musical theatre composer (delete as applicable) is heading back to the iconic Sydney Opera House to play a special, one-off show on its forecourt!
Tim will be performing on Monday 23rd February 2015 as part of the On The Steps series of concerts.
He’ll be bringing with him a band of unspecified size, to play a currently undecided setlist that’ll feature a mix of your favourite classics, with a few bits and pieces you might not have heard before thrown in for good measure!
This is Tim’s only Australian show scheduled for 2015 (apologies to the rest of the country) so you’ll want to get your tickets sharpish and, fortunately, we’ve got a presale link for you:
The 16 strong tracklist features these classic gems:
So F**king Rock
Inflatable You
Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd
Ten Foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins
If You Open Your Mind Too Much
Canvas Bags
If You Really Loved Me
Some People Have It Worse Than Me
You Grew On Me
Dark Side
Not Perfect
If you’re in Europe, they also offer Tim’s other albums – Ready For This? and Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra – for the same price, so if you’re a new fan of Tim’s, here’s your chance to catch up with his back catalogue!
As in previous years, all November, December and January profits from the sale of Tim’s sentimental Christmas song, White Wine In The Sun, will go to The National Autistic Society (NAS) which provides support, information and services for people with autism and their families and campaigns for “a better world for people with autism”.
Storm the Illustrated Book which sprang from Tim’s sublime critical thinking beat-poem, is now available onlineand in all good bookshops!
With a foreword from Neil Gaiman, a detailed introduction by Tim and amazing new artwork from animator and illustrator DC Turner (with producer Tracy King), the book expresses Tim’s satirical lyrical trickery beautifully.
For a peek inside at some of the stunning artwork and for a list of various online retailers for both the paperback and the eBook, take a look at the Storm – The Illustrated Book Page.
“You’d imagine that any attempt to gild Tim’s lily would end in disaster, but Storm succeeds on every level. An absolute treat” – Rufus Hound
“I have lived Storm, repeatedly. Minchin is a god among dorks.” – Ben Goldacre
“Tim Minchin is a prophet and a poet, and Storm is his masterpiece: a passionate love letter to reason that is as hilarious as it is profound, as savage as it is touching. Flawlessly written and divinely illustrated, this is a truly unique and special book. And if you happen to be a friend of mine, you should put it down right now, because this is what I’m buying you for Christmas.” – Jane Goldman
It’s time for more Tim on your telly, Australians!
Tomorrow, Thursday 16th October 2014, Tim will be seated behind the desk on The Project on Channel Ten!
The show airs at 6:30pm, and he’ll be joining hosts and regular panellists Carrie Bickmore, Pete Helliar, Josh Zepps and Mia Freedman, along with their other special guest, Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs, to dissect and give their unique take on the day’s news.
If, for some reason you’re busy and haven’t dropped all your plans to watch Tim on TV, the show will be available afterwards on The Project’s website.
Tim also appeared on Channel Nine’s Today, yesterday, to talk about Matilda The Musical and you can catch up with that interview here.
Back in February we told you that Matilda was heading to Sydney and finally, after months of waiting, you’ll be able to grab yourself some tickets to see this ridiculously brilliant, multi-award-winning musical with your own eyes!
Performances at the Sydney Lyric Theatre start on the 28th July 2015 and you’ll be able to buy tickets from 9am tomorrow morning (15th October 2014) at Ticketmaster.
Tim said: “I am incredibly excited that Matilda is opening in Sydney. Ten years ago this month, I was writing songs for the 2004 Christmas show at the Old Fitz in Woolloomooloo. The first time I straightened my hair and put on thick eye make-up was downstairs at the Seymour Centre. I even wrote songs for the musical that opened the Joan Sutherland centre in Penrith, (the opening song of which I extensively stole from when I wrote the opening number for Matilda).
Last year I fulfilled a dream of acting in a Stoppard at the Sydney Theatre Company. Long before anyone took much notice of my silly tunes, Sydney offered me some of the most edifying and hilarious experiences of my career. The thought that in less than a year, the Lyric’s curtain will be opening on our darling Matilda feels just perfect.”
And if all that wasn’t enough to whip you into a fevered frenzy, here’s a trailer for the production!
Tim will be making an appearance on Australian telly screens this Friday as part of the Friday Night Crack Up!
Friday Night Crack Up is the climax of a week of mental health programming on ABC and will air on ABC on Friday 10th October 2014 at 7:30pm.
The two-hour variety show will be hosted by Eddie Perfect and will feature stars from all of your favourite shows, comedians and musicians, and will showcase major musical numbers, in-studio parlour games, sketches and surprising performances!
Tune in to watch the likes of the X Factor judges, MasterChef’s Matt Preston, Home and Away stars Nic Westaway, Alec Snow and Bonnie Sveen, Missy Higgins and Shaun Micallef doing things you never thought you’d see them do!
Eddie Perfect said, “I can’t lie. I have no idea how a live television variety show in support of Mental Health Week is going to work because none of us have done this before. What I do know is that we have an unprecedented line-up of singers, actors, musicians, comedians and writers joining together despite their conflicting network affiliations, throwing caution to the wind and bringing their considerable gifts to the table in support of mental health. It’s precisely my anarchic idea of a good time, actually. It’s time to talk about mental health; an issue which eventually touches every single one of us. Might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re at it.”
The ABC is working with the Society for Mental Health Research (SMHR) and its President, Professor Patrick McGorry, to help boost funding for mental health research and support the effort in discovering the next breakthroughs in preventing, diagnosing and treating mental ill health. Show your support by making a donation at abc.net.au/mentalas.
Tim will be joining Rhys Darby and Emily Heller on the panel of @midnight on Comedy Central this week! Hosted by Chris Hardwick, the show is an internet-themed improv comedy panel show, where comedians compete to find the funniest take on the day’s social media.
The show will air on Comedy Central on Thursday 2nd October, 2014, 12A/11C. Check your local schedules for further details. Episodes can be found on the Comedy Central @midnight website after they air.
Hulu will also post the show the day after it airs and it will be available for 30 days. For more details check hulu.com/midnight.
Tim will be recording this episode on Wednesday, October 1st, 2014, at 7:15pm, at Hollywood Center Studios, so if you’re in or near LA, you might like to apply for tickets from On Camera Audiences (OCA).
Two beards collide to make beautiful music together! On Tuesday 30th September, 2014, at 9pm (BST) Tim will be special guest producer on Beardyman’s One Album Per Hour – Live.
You may remember Beardyman, who is acclaimed for his extraordinary beatboxing skills and use of live looping technology, appearing with Tim on the 2011 Comedy Prom, where Tim introduced him as “…an oral wizard [and] a lingual freak…”.
They need you to suggest song titles. Tim will be sifting through these and deciding which ones Beardyman must use as inspiration for songs on the album. An album they’ll be creating completely LIVE, from scratch, in real time as we all watch them! That’s an album written, produced, mixed and mastered… in an hour.
Then on Tuesday at 9pm, watch the album come together on Beardyman’s YouTube channel or at www.beardyman.co.uk. If you can’t watch live the full show will be up on those sites afterwards.
There’s even a countdown to the show:
To get an idea what Tim’s in for, check out the full show with Jack Black as guest producer a couple of weeks ago here.
Do you live somewhere other than the UK, Australia and North America?
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