It’s been a while since there was a bit of new Tim footage on UK TV, but Comedy Central will be putting an end to that this week!
On Saturday 29th March, at 10pm, Comedy Central will be showing the best bits from the Just for Laughs festival from recent years, including one of Tim’s performances from 2011!
The show will also feature some wonderful appearances from Rich Hall, Russell Kane, Mark Watson, and Kristen Schall, as if the fuzzy-haired one isn’t reason enough alone for you to tune in.
After rocking out American and Australian TV sets as Atticus Fetch last year, you’ll soon be able to grab a copy of Californication Season 6 to watch Tim live out his rock star fantasies whenever you want!
Want to watch a particular scene over and over again? Not a problem. Missed the season entirely? Well you’ll be able to fix that. Want to skip all the bits with Tim in? Well, you could, but we don’t condone that kind of activity here…
That’s right, Season 6 of Californication is coming to DVD (and to Blu-Ray as well in Australia) in quite a few countries over the next month, so here’s a handy guide as to where and when you can get hold of it.
US: 25th March 2014 – DVD
Canada: 25th March 2014 – DVD
UK: 14th April 2014 – DVD
Australia: 23rd April 2014 – DVD and Blu-Ray
France: 23rd April – DVD
Germany: 8th May 2014 – DVD
If your country isn’t on the list, please check with your local retailer as it might still be being released in your area.
Look at how excited Tim is about this!
On Sunday 15th June at 3pm, the Royal Shakespeare Company will present the first ‘relaxed performance’ of Matilda The Musical at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End. The National Autistic Society is working closely with the RSC on this special performance offering full access to the theatre for people with autism and learning disabilities.
Tim: “Through no work of my own, two of my favourite organisations – The Royal Shakespeare Co and the National Autistic Society – have come together to organise a relaxed performance of one of my favourite musicals! I’m so bloody chuffed it’s happening, and only wish I could be there to witness it.”
The performance will provide a relaxed environment, with elements of the production adapted to reduce anxiety or stress. Lighting and sound levels will be adjusted to soften their impact and there will be a relaxed attitude to noise and moving around the auditorium during the performance. Designated ‘chill-out’ areas will be provided outside the auditorium with soft seating and activities for people to use if being in the auditorium becomes overwhelming for them.
Tickets for this performance will be offered at the reduced rate of £20 and can be booked through the RSC Ticket Hotline 0844 800 1110 or in person at the Cambridge Theatre box office.
All those who book will be sent a visual story to help them familiarise themselves with the plot, characters and the setting before they arrive at the theatre. Further event details can be found on the dedicated RELAXED PERFORMANCE section of the Matilda the Musical website.
The original cast recording of Matilda the Musical is available from iTunes and on CD. The CD is available from the RSC Shop or the SHOP tab on this site.
Tim will be performing at KROQ’s 6th Annual Kevin & Bean’s April Foolishness show on Saturday 5th April, 2014, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
He’ll be joining an all-star line up including Jim Jefferies, Patton Oswalt, Adam Carolla, Marc Maron, Doug Benson, Eddie Ifft, and Taylor Williamson. For full event details, including the various price bands, take a look at the KROQ website.
Tickets go on sale Friday 14th March at 12:00pm, via Ticketmaster.com and all participating Ticketmaster outlets.
This year’s proceeds from Kevin & Bean’s April Foolishness will be donated to Fisher House and Cedars-Sinai NICU.
The show is sure to sell out, so best get a wriggle on if you fancy some foolishness this April!
UPDATE: (2nd April 2014) Unfortunately Marc Maron will no longer be performing but the amazing Reggie Watts has stepped up to join the line-up.
The spectacular Tim Minchin And The Heritage Orchestra (Live At The Royal Albert Hall) will be on E4 tonight/the early hours of Saturday 8th March, at 12:25am.
Filmed at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2011. Tim’s joined on stage by the awesome 55-piece Heritage Orchestra, led by Jules Buckley, and by Pete Clements on bass and Brad Webb on drums. Oh the majesty!
The concert features orchestrations of old favourites such as You Grew on Me, Not Perfect, Dark Side, Prejudice and Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd, as well as newer classics like Thank You God, Lullaby and many more. It’s a heady mix of soaring music in a very special, wonderfully lit setting with Tim’s sharp satirical comedy and iconic dance moves.
Behold, a marvellously cheesy taster and a look at the fabulous Royal Albert Hall:
E4 is showing edited highlights. If you’d like to see the full show, the DVD is available from the UK & Europe Shop and the Australasia Shop. Both ship internationally if you are outside these regions and we’ll announce on this site as soon as it is available in North America.
Although, unfortunately, the professional and amateur performance rights for Matilda the Musical are not yet released, the creators of the marvellous West End and Broadway hit are looking forward to releasing a junior version (currently in development) via MTI.
If you are super keen to perform, you don’t have to wait for that, because next week it’ll be possible for your school to get a licence to perform a short version: Matilda the Musical (in 20 minutes) which features five of Tim’s fabulous songs: Naughty, School Song, The Chokey Chant, Bruce and Revolting Children linked by passages and excerpts from the script by Dennis Kelly. This version will be available for a limited time prior to the official release by MTI of the aforementioned Matilda the Musical Junior Version.
Matilda the Musical (in 20 minutes) will be released for schools and amateur youth groups (i.e. performers aged 16 years or younger) in the UK and Ireland ONLY from 4th March, 2014. For more information, and to obtain the rights, please click here to go to the Carasotto website.
At the moment there are no performance rights available to groups anywhere else in the world.
UPDATE (07/03/14): As we have seen some confusion in the comments, to clarify:
This website cannot sign you up to this version, add you to a mailing list for it or give you a licence.
To obtain the rights to Matilda the Musical (in 20 minutes), please visit the Carasotto website.
Australians! It’s the news you’ve all been waiting for: we can finally confirm that Matilda The Musical is heading Down Under!
NSW Premier, Barry O’Farrell confirmed today that the spectacular, multi-award-winning musical, based on the book by Roald Dahl, will make it’s Australian premiere at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney in August 2015.
Tim‘s just as excited as you are about it, saying:
“Working on Matilda has been one of the greatest thrills of my life, and I’ve been aching to let her loose on audiences at home. Most of us grew up reading Dahl – the Australian sense of humour gels so well with his dark, iconoclastic tone. The last time a musical I helped write opened in Sydney, the actors almost outnumbered the audience, the theatre leaked, and my drummer was a bass player. If Matilda’s arrival is half as fun as that was, it’ll be a hoot.”
There’s no news about casting and ticketing yet, but once they’re confirmed, we’ll make sure to let you know all about it.
Looks like we’ll be adding an exciting new chapter to our Matilda story shortly!
Matilda The Musical has won Best West End Show in the 2014 Whatsonstage Awards!
The Whatsonstage Awards are nominated by and voted for entirely by theatregoers and the ticket-buying public and were presented, this evening, at the Awards Ceremony and Concert at The Prince of Wales Theatre, London, hosted by Rufus Hound and Mel Giedroyc. The full list of winners can be found here.
This is how the voting went for The EQUITY Best West End Show:
Les Misérables – at the Queen’s (24.9%)
Matilda the Musical – RSC at the Cambridge (31.4%)
The Phantom of the Opera – at Her Majesty’s (8.1%)
War Horse – at the New London (14.7%)
Wicked – at the Apollo Victoria (21.0%)
Whoop! Whoop!
Sometimes you have to be a little bit celebratory…
Thank you for voting!
*****
Oh! If your voting fingers are still twitching, you can satisfy them with a vote here for Matilda to win the BBC Radio 2 Audience Award at the 2014 Oliviers.
Voting closes at 5pm (GMT) on 4th March 2014 and the awards ceremony is on Sunday 13th April, at the Royal Opera House.
Matilda The Musical, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Dodgers, has announced a North American Tour commencing in May 2015.
Following technical rehearsals and performances in New Haven at the Shubert Theater, the tour will officially open at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Amongst others, there will be dates in San Francisco’s SHN Orpheum Theatre, Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre and Dallas’ AT&T Performing Arts Center. A full touring schedule will be announced along with the casting at a later date and we’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Matilda The Musical opened in April 2013 at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre to host of marvellously glowing reviews, won a slew of awards and has been celebrated on 10 “Top Ten” lists for 2013, including TIME Magazine’s #1 Show of the Year.
If you’d like to catch up with how Tim came to write the music and lyrics for the stage musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s famous book, then the story so far is here. You’ll also find the reviews and awards Matilda has received, both in the West End and on Broadway, along with photos and videos marking key chapters.
After its release last year on iTunes, the audio from the So F**king Rock Live DVD is finally available on CD too!
As Tim so eloquently put it in his blog post, “It is simply the audio from the DVD with the stand-up bits cut out, remixed by the clever ears and fingers of Mr Pete Clements.” The full tracklist looks a little bit like this:
1. So F**king Rock
2. Inflatable You
3. Rock ‘N’ Roll Nerd
4. Mitsubishi Colt
5. Ten Foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins
6. If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)
7. F Sharp
8. Canvas Bags
9. Nothing Can Stop Us Now
10. Some People Have It Worse Than I
11. If You Really Loved Me
12. Peace Anthem for Palestine
13. You Grew On Me
14. Dark Side
15. Not Perfect
16. Second Encore
You can grab yourself one of these silvery discs of goodness from this very website, whether you’re in Europe, North America or Australasia and if you’re in the UK, you might also get the opportunity to spot one of them in the wild at your local record shop!
me!
I’ve just been sent final figures from the Koko gig in London in December.
We raised a total of £13,561.69 for the amazing work Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) are doing in Syria.
Jut wanted to say thanks very much for coming and putting money into buckets and generally being awesome.
Here is the MSF website if you’re interested in getting more involved.
In other news, I’m in LA with the flu. Hope you’re all well.
tx
you!
me ‘n’ Pete Clements
“Rock For The Docs” photos by house photographer Joe Traylen.
A quick heads-up, just in case you’ve not yet noticed:
Ready For This? and Tim Minchin And The Heritage Orchestra Live at the Royal Albert Hall were recently put up on Netflix UK.
Netflix UK has a month by month subscription for streaming various Films and TV programmes.
‘Ready For This?’ was filmed, in 2010, in front of a justifiably enthusiastic audience during a sell-out, 3-night run at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, in London. It features: Prejudice, If I Didn’t Have You, Bears Don’t Dig On Dancing, Canvas Bags, Confessions, White Wine In The Sun, the acclaimed nine minute beat poem; Storm and many more.
The spectacular ‘Tim Minchin And The Heritage Orchestra Live at the Royal Albert Hall’ was filmed in April 2011. Tim is joined on stage by the awesome 55-piece Heritage Orchestra, led by Jules Buckley and by Pete Clements on bass and Brad Webb on drums. The concert features new orchestrations of favourites such as You Grew on Me, Not Perfect, Dark Side, Prejudice and Rock `n’ Roll Nerd, as well as Thank You God, Lullaby and many more.
Update for those asking on Twitter and elsewhere: there’s no word yet about Tim’s shows going up on Netflix USA or elsewhere, but if we hear anything we will announce here.
Hi all,
It seems that our wee secret has leaked: I’m working on a stage musical adaptation of the iconic and brilliant Danny Rubin script, Groundhog Day. Danny himself is writing the ‘book’, I’m writing music and lyrics, and Matthew Warchus (of Matilda fame) is directing.
For the handful of you who’ve never seen the film (philistines!), Groundhog Day is about a cantankerous weatherman who is sent to a small town to do a weather report, and gets stuck in a time loop, living the same day over and over again until – eventually – he figures out how to be less of a miserable, egotistical git. It’s about selflessness and acceptance and love and time and life and death and all that good stuff.
The 1993 Sony Pictures film was directed by Harold Ramis and starred Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, and is a true comedy classic. However, it would be impossible to try to translate the style and tone of the movie to stage… and even if it were possible, it wouldn’t interest me. (Or Danny or Matthew, for that matter).
Our version of Groundhog Day is going to be both instantly recognizable, and utterly different.
The central conceit is perfectly suited to the theatre, in my opinion. In fact, I think many of its ideas could be enhanced by the stage. It has the potential to be complex, dark, visually fascinating, and thematically rich, whilst still being a joyous romantic comedy with cool tunes and lots of gags. It’s certainly not an easy job, and I’m truly honoured – and genuinely excited – that Danny is letting me have a crack at it.
The idea of a Groundhog Day musical is not new; famously, Stephen Sondheim was rumoured to be working on the idea five or ten years ago. I’ve actually spoken to him about it (he is – if you’re wondering – a brilliant, witty, charming man), and the truth is he was only ever tossing the idea around. It got put on the back burner, and he is now happy that we’re making a go of it. We have Steve’s blessing – and it’s a blessing I value enormously.
So, we’re aiming for a workshop sometime towards summer, and hopefully we’ll have it on stage within a couple of years. But who knows? Maybe the whole project will get caught in a temporal vortex and we won’t be able to finish writing it until we’ve achieved wisdom.
Either way, you won’t hear any more about it from us until we know where and when we’re going to put it on. Back to work!
tx
PS I actually played two of the ballads from GhD at Koko in Camden a few weeks ago. Not sure whether, out of context, they meant anything to those of you who were there, but I hope you enjoyed them. I suspect some of you guessed the project ages ago anyway!
You may have already noticed that Matilda The Musical has been nominated for Best West End Show in the 2014 Whatsonstage Awards. These awards are nominated by and voted for purely by theatregoers and the ticket-buying public.
Voting opened in December and Matilda is up against Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, War Horse and Wicked. Sterling competition.
Matilda is currently second, just 2% behind Les Mis… the show that pipped Matilda to the post for this award last year! Close huh?!
So if you’d like to help make it Matilda‘s year for this award, you can cast your votes here!
There are a great many categories and you can only vote once but you can vote in as many or as few categories as you like. The Best West End Show category is near the bottom of the list.
Voting closes on the 31st January, 2014 and the winners will be announced on the 23rd February, at the Awards Ceremony and Concert.
In more exciting award news: The RSC’s Matilda Broadway cast album has been nominated for a 2014 Grammy Award, in the musical theatre category! The 56th Grammy awards will take place on the 26th January, 2014, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. More information here and here.
The spectacular Jesus Christ Superstar, with Tim playing his, award winning, dream role of Judas Iscariot, is on Channel 5 on Monday 30th December, 2013, at 11:35pm.
The show was filmed over two nights at Birmingham’s NIA, for a delighted and emotional crowd, when it first toured UK arenas in 2012. The fabulous cast also includes Melanie C as Mary Magdalene, Alexander Hanson in the role of Pontius Pilate, Chris Moyles as King Herod and winner of the ITV prime-time show Superstar Ben Forster in the title role of Jesus.
So if you want to see Tim brooding, rocking and [spoiler alert] dying in dreadlocks and tatts, now’s your chance. If the late time slot doesn’t suit you then fear not, it should appear on Demand 5 shortly after it airs.
UPDATE 30/12/2013: Our apologies – Channel 5 inform us that they will not be putting this up on Demand 5. However, if you can’t catch or record the programme, the DVD and Blu-ray are available in UK shops and online from various places including the JCS website and Amazon. (The DVD and Blu-ray are also available in Australia and the US.)
Here are a few (spoilery) clips to whet your appetite:
(more…)
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