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The casting for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical, was announced today!

Most of you will already know by now* about Matilda The Musical, based on the enchanting Roald Dahl book, produced by the RSC and directed by Matthew Warchus. Acclaimed playwright Dennis Kelly wrote the book with the music and lyrics by a certain Tim Minchin, oh yes.

Following a highly successful sold-out run at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, from November 2010 to January 2011, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s world premiere production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical will transfer to London’s Cambridge Theatre, previewing from Tuesday 18 October.

Many of the original cast will be returning, so Bertie Carvel is back as the hilariously terrifying Miss Trunchbull; Paul Kaye as the colourful chancer Mr Wormwood; Josie Walker as the flamboyantly expressive Mrs Wormwood and Lauren Ward as the gentle and kind Miss Honey. Also reprising their roles from the original production in Stratford, are Marc Antolin, Verity Bentham, Peter Howe, Michael Kent, Melanie La Barrie, Matthew Malthouse, Alastair Parker, Nick Searle and Emily Shaw.

Further adult casting includes: Matthew Clark, Leanne Pinder, Rachel Moran, Lucy Thatcher, Tim Walton and Gary Watson.

The four young actresses playing the role of Matilda are still being kept top secret and appropriately they will be announced on Dahl Day on Tuesday 13 September.

As before there will be three teams of eight young performers playing the roles of Bruce, Lavender, Amanda, Nigel, Eric and the other pupils at Crunchem Hall Primary School. They are: Thomas Atkinson, Jake Bailey, James Beesley, Ruby Bridle, Oonagh Cox, Jemima Eaton, Alicia Gould, Zachary Harris, Callum Henderson, Fleur Houdijk, Jamie Kaye, William Keeler, Lily Laight, Katie Lee, Isobelle Molloy, Jemima Morgan, Toby Murray, Alfie Manser, Lucy May Pollard, Annabel Parsons, Ellie Simons, Louis Suc, Jaydon Vijn and Ted Wilson.

If you’d like tickets to this amazing musical for adults and children alike then they are available from the Matilda The Musical website where you can also sign up to the RSC mailing list for news. The gorgeous soundtrack, recorded with the original Stratford-upon-Avon cast, will be out very soon. It’s available to pre-order from The RSC Shop already.

*If you’d like more information and to see the trailer or to catch up with the story so far and read the awesome four and five star reviews the show received in Stratford-upon-Avon, pop on over to the Matilda page also accessible whenever you like via the pretty ‘Matilda’ tab at the top.

After his success earlier in the year, Tim’s headed back over the Atlantic once again, with three dates just confirmed for the beginning of October, playing shows in Mesa, AZ, Dallas, TX and Boulder, CO!

• On the 7th October, you can catch the lion-haired pianist at the Mesa Arts Center, in Mesa.
• On the 8th October, you can see the bare-footed nerd at the Lakewood Theater in Dallas.
• On the 9th October, you can observe the tight-panted fool at the Boulder Theater in Boulder.

Tickets for all shows go on general sale on Friday 26th August, 10am local time, but as ever, we have a presale password for you to use, which means that you can grab your tickets today, from 10am! The password you’ll need is REESE (case sensitive).

Mesa tickets can be purchased from the Arts Centre box office; Dallas tickets can be bought from Ticketmaster and Boulder tickets can be bought from the Theatre box office.

All these venues are fairly small and intimate, so you’d best get a wiggle on to ensure you get seats for what promises to be a series of cosy and hilarious evenings!

This weekend marks the first ever Comedy Prom at the Royal Albert Hall on the 13th August, as hosted by our Tim. Also confirmed to be appearing alongside him are:

• Sue Perkins
• Kit and The Widow
• Beardyman
• The Boy with Tape on his Face
• Doc Brown
• Mongrels
• Susan Bullock (soprano)
• Danny Driver (piano)
• BBC Concert Orchestra
• Jules Buckley (conductor)
• Andrew Litton (guest conductor)

Seated tickets sold out pretty quickly, though you might be able to get returns from the Royal Albert Hall box office. If you’re local to the area though, there will be standing tickets in the arena and gallery, available on the day, for the bargain price of £5! Tickets must be bought in person and paid for by cash. A limited number of tickets for the arena will usually be sold to the day queue from 5pm and the remaining tickets will then be sold from door 11 (arena) and door 10 (gallery) from 6:45pm to those queuing there.

If you can’t make it down, or are in another country, then the whole thing is being broadcast live, worldwide, on BBC Radio 3! It’ll kick off at 7:30pm in the UK, but if you’re elsewhere, click here to find out when it starts in your region. If you can’t listen live, then it’ll be on iPlayer for seven days afterwards.

There will also be a television broadcast on the 27th August on BBC2 and BBC HD, and we’ll be sure to remind you of that closer to the time!

If you’re curious as to what Tim thinks about it all, he’s written a blog here for Limelight Magazine.

Start spreading the news: Tim will be returning to the US this autumn and performing at the Town Hall, New York, NY, on Friday November 4th, 2011 at 8pm.

There’s a presale right now!
Tickets are available from Ticketmaster
Password: ELECTRIC

This presale runs until 10pm EDT on Thursday 11th August, with tickets on General Sale on Friday 12th August at 10am EDT.

You can find the Town Hall seating plan here. It looks to have a capacity of just over 800 so if you want tickets to this then grab them fast as all Tim’s New York dates this year have sold out very quickly.

It could be cold in November, so you might have to huddle with your friends for warmth so go forth and multi-buy!

Tim’s won the 2011 Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work: Tim Minchin Vs Sydney Symphony. The last night of this show was broadcast by ABC2 in April this year. This isn’t the first time he’s won a Helpmann – back in 2009 Tim won the Award for Best Comedy Performer for his show Ready For This?

Established in 2001 by Live Performance Australia, the prestigious Helpmann Awards were announced last night, at the awards ceremony, at the Sydney Opera House. Forty-one awards were presented for theatre, musical theatre, dance, opera and music.

The full Helpmann 2011 Winners List can be viewed here.

By the way, you are all signed up to Tim’s mailing list aren’t you?

Yep, that’s right – due to what can only be popular demand, a third night has been added to Tim’s stint at Vicar Street! Tickets for the new date on the 15th went on sale this morning from Ticketmaster so there’s still opportunity for you to grab good seats but you’d best be quick about it!

Can you believe it’ll only be the fourth time he’s brought his bare feet, grand piano and stupid… songs to Ireland for a full length show? All the more reason to head on down and given it’s a Saturday, you’ve got no excuse not to take a mini-break to see him!

Are you in?

Tim will be headlining a charity gig for Amnesty International as part of their 50th Anniversary. Live & Ungagged Again! will be at The Sands Centre in Carlisle on Friday 23rd Sept at 7.30pm. 100% of the profits go to Amnesty International.

He’ll be joined by Jarred Christmas, Daniel Sloss, Imran Yusuf and the evening will be compered by Chris Ramsey.

Tickets are £21/£18 Students and go on sale 9am Tuesday 26th July.
www.thesandscentre.co.uk
Box Office: 01228 625222

Tim will be live, ungagged, uncaged, unrestrained, unimpeded, unshod, unabashed, …underpanted and unsurprisingly gloriously unkempt of hairdo. Fancy unwinding and having a giggle with Tim and the rest of the line up, all in aid of an important campaigning organisation?

You know what to do…

Going to or thinking of going to the Green Man Festival this year?

Green Man is held at Glanusk Park, Usk Valley, Powys, Wales and runs from the 19th-21st August 2011 but early arrivals on Thursday 18th August will be able to see Tim performing at a special evening gig to open the festival!

Gates and camp sites open at 10am on Thursday 18th August.

The festival is pretty close to selling out but you can still get tickets from Ticketline. Pricing and other ticket outlets are listed here, where you’ll also be able to access the full line up and festival details.

Go Green, See Red…

It’s been a long time coming, but we can finally confirm that Tim has some swanky, new merchandise for you North Americans!

Shirt

If you’re catching him on tour this month or next, there’s this rather lovely shirt that you can pick up at shows (tacks not included).

There’s no information about whether it’ll be made available online but if it is, rest assured there’ll be an announcement about it!

CD

‘Ready for This?’ is going to get a proper CD release, in shops and stuff, soon and will also be available at Tim’s gigs from later this week. If you’ve been missing it on iTunes, then good news on that front as that’s coming back shortly too!

DVD

You’ve been waiting for this one! ‘Ready For This?’ as recorded at Hammersmith Apollo in 2009, is planned to be released in September. This is all that’s known at this point but, again, once we have any more information on this, we’ll let you know.

Full details of Tim’s North American shows, where you can pick up some of this swag, can be found on the gigs page, and, if you noticed the back of the shirt, it might be worth keeping an eye on it too…

As if it wasn’t enough that Tim’s playing at Apple Cart Festival on the 7th August, Beautiful Days on the 21st August and the Reading and Leeds weekenders, we can also announce that he’s playing at yet another festival this year!

Tim will be opening the Greenwich Comedy Festival on the 5th September, alongside Holly Walsh and two other acts, who are still to be announced. The festival will take place in the Old Royal Naval College, with the other acts performing including Rich Hall, Milton Jones, Kevin Eldon, David O’Doherty and Abandoman.

Tickets for all the shows and the full line up of who’s performing so far, are available from the Greenwich Comedy Festival website.

Who do you hope will be joining him and Holly Walsh?

If you missed out on tickets to see Tim at Bonnaroo or if you, perhaps, simply want to see some more of him, then read on!

Tomorrow at 6pm ET / 3pm PT, Comedy Central are hosting a three to four hour live webcast of some of the comedy acts that are appearing at this weekend’s festival, and one of them is none other than Tim!

He’ll be appearing along with acts such as Bill Bailey, Lewis Black, Henry Rollins and Donald Glover. The full line up, and, eventually, the link to stream this comedy extravaganza, are available on Comedy Central’s website.

While this is streaming over the internet, it’s unlikely this will be viewable outside of America due to copyright, but there’s no harm trying, right?

And if it ends up leaving you wanting more, don’t forget, there are a host of US gigs still to come, with a full list of all the dates on the gigs page.

Last night on Conan Tim performed ‘Prejudice’ as many of you correctly predicted in the blog that announced it.

If you are in Australia you might want to delay looking at the video below as you’ll be able to see the show on GEM this Thursday 9th June, 2011.

However, for those in the US who missed it and those in the UK and elsewhere, here’s the bare footage for your delectation:

[edit – ok, this video seems to have gone away. not our fault. oh well, you’re not reading this anyway, it’s too long ago isn’t it.]

Tim is currently on a two month tour of the US and you can find all the dates and ticket links here.

And another four American tour dates have been confirmed, for those near Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Philadelphia!

Atlanta, Tim will be bringing his flashy dance moves and bare feet to Center Stage* on the 14th July 2011.

St. Louis, you’ll be treated to Tim’s skin-tight jeans and stupid hair at the Sheldon Concert Hall** on 15th July 2011.

Minneapolis, join Tim at the Pantages Theatre on the 16th July 2011 to see his rockin’ eyeliner and his enormous… sense of showmanship***

Philadelphia, Tim will be rocking up to the Theatre of Living Arts on the 22nd July 2011, showing off his witty repartee and massive… repertoire****

Tickets for the Atlanta and St. Louis shows go on sale tomorrow at 10am – Atlanta tickets can be bought from Ticketmaster and St. Louis tickets can be bought from MetroTix. While they both say general sale commences then, if you do need a password, it’ll be ‘reese’.

Minneapolis tickets go on sale on Friday from Ticketmaster from 10am CDT and Philadelphia tickets will be available from LiveNation from Wednesday at 10am EDT. While we don’t have any presale information yet for these two shows, if we do get any, we’ll be sure to update this post with it, just for you, because we like you.

Update: There will be a Minneapolis presale from Wednesday at 10am. The password you’ll need for it is VOICE.

And, if none of these float your boat, don’t forget there are already plenty of other US dates already announced on the gigs page!

*The flashy dance moves and bare feet will also be making an appearance at the Sheldon Concert Hall, the Pantages Theatre and the Theatre of Living Arts.
** Atlanta, Minneapolis and Philadelphia, you’ll also be getting skin-tight jeans and stupid hair.
*** Rockin’ eyeliner and his enormous… sense of showmanship will also be on display at Center Stage, the Sheldon Concert Hall and the Theatre of Living Arts.
**** Witty repartee and massive… repertoire also available at Atlanta, St. Louis and Minneapolis

Following his extremely well received US TV debut on the show back in January, Tim’ll be appearing on Conan on tbs at 11/10c again on Tuesday 7th June, 2011. The other guests are rapper and TV personality Flavor Flav and Australian chef, author and TV personality Curtis Stone.

If you’d like a reminder of his last perfomance of ‘Inflatable You’ on the show, do take a look here.

What are you hoping for/predicting he’ll perform on the show this time?

Edit: Last time the show aired in Australia on GEM a few days later. We have no confirmation that this will happen again but it might be worth looking out for, just in case. If it happens, it’ll likely be Thursday 9th June, 2011 – 11:30pm

Another day and another American tour date (and there are still more to come) and, like yesterday’s, this one was highly requested by you guys!

So, allow me to announce that Tim will be heading over to the Bay Area for a gig in San Francisco! The show will take place at the poshly named Palace of Fine Arts on 8th July 2011 and tickets for this shindig went on sale this very morning from Ticketmaster!

If you like your comedy combined with a mixture of piano playing, intelligence, big hair, bare feet and impossibly tight jeans, then you’d best get your mitts on tickets sharpish, else you’ll feel a fool when it’s all sold out, and no one wants you feeling a fool, especially not the fool…