THE AUSTRALIAN COMPOSER and entertainer Tim Minchin sits outside a rehearsal room in London. It is a pleasant day in April. Tooled up on tea and creative adrenaline, talking quickly and well, the 47-year-old is comparing the experience of working on two big stage musicals. In 2010, there was Matilda, the planet-devouring omni-smash, which flourished in the West End, on Broadway and on family car journeys, transforming Minchin from an anarchic musical comedian who could fill a good-sized room at the Edinburgh festival into a feted and wealthy man. "I mean, Matilda, fuck," is all the loquacious Minchin can say about that show's successes for now. More interesting to him, because more troubled, was the follow-up, Groundhog Day, a 2016 musical adapted from the popular 90s movie of the same name.
"When you make something so detailed, over so many thousands of hours, something you think is broadly appealing, about how we're to be as people - and it doesn't fly? That's incredibly painful," Minchin says.
Dressed today in muted colours, his untidy reddish hair tied back under a baseball cap, he lists the little catastrophes that hobbled Groundhog Day seven years ago: investors pulling out; the choreographer falling ill; a feeling of being rushed to New York after a strong London opening, before the show was quite ready. Groundhog Day closed on Broadway in autumn 2017, after 200-odd performances, and has more or less sat in a drawer since. "It's not a meritocracy," Minchin shrugs. "Mamma Mia's one of the highest-selling musicals ever... Broadway is not a measure of what is good, or not to me. If you want to go there to make your moolah, then you can't be surprised if you have a rough ride."
This story is from the May 05, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the May 05, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
No 298 Bean, cabbage and coconut-milk soup
Deep, sweet heat. A soup that soothes and invigorates simultaneously.
Cottage cheese goes viral: in reluctant praise of a food trend
I was asked recently which food trends I think will take over in 2025.
I'm worried that my teenage son is in a toxic relationship
A year ago, our almost 18-year-old son began seeing a girl, who is a year older than him and is his first \"real\" girlfriend.
BOOKS OF THE MONTH
A roundup of the best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror
Dying words
The Nobel prize winner explores the moment of death and beyond in a probing tale of a fisher living in near solitude
Origin story
We homo sapiens evolved and succeeded when other hominins didn't-but now our expansionist drive is threatening the planet
Glad rags to riches
Sarcastic, self-aware and surprisingly sad, the first volume of Cher's extraordinary memoir mixes hard times with the high life
Sail of the century
Anenigmatic nautical radio bulletin first broadcast 100 years ago, the Shipping Forecast has beguiled and inspired poets, pop stars and listeners worldwide
How does it feel?
A Complete Unknown retells Bob Dylan's explosive rise, but it als resonates with today's toxic fame and politics. The creative team expl their process-and wha the singer made of it all
Jane Austen's enduring legacy lies in her relevance as a foil for modern mores
For some, it will be enough merely to re-read Persuasion, and thence to cry yet again at Captain Wentworth's declaration of utmost love for Anne Elliot.
