Two decades at the top of his game, and Tim Minchin still exudes the air of a man who can’t quite believe his luck. It’s an infectious, celebratory attitude that quashes his fears that this retrospective-of-sorts might veer towards the self-indulgent.
We see where it all started with grainy video footage in 2004 at Melbourne’s very intimate Butterfly Club, fresh-faced and earnest – and with neat, tightly curled hair. Fast-forward through that city’s comedy festival the following year, breakout Edinburgh Fringe and on to conquer the O2 Arena and Sydney Opera House.
While he was born from comedy – and the genre will likely always claim him as one of its own – he resists being pigeonholed. One consequence of his enduring career is that he no longer feels the need to explain what genre he is, describing Songs The World Will Never Hear as a 'shitshow of tonal inconsistency’.
Certainly the set list ranges from the silly to the sincere, reflecting an increasing ease with sophisticated, earnest songwriting as he’s matured (shockingly, he enters his sixth decade later this year). But there are constants behind most of his work, such as a curiosity and a desire to reach for honesty rather than cliché, an instinct that works just as effectively for comedy as it does for candour.
The oldest song in this show is 28 years old, penned as a rebuke to his older brother for returning to an unhealthy relationship. The Song of The Masochist fizzes with life, an urgent, chaotic funk track with punchy, catchy lyrics.
Then we have more recent offerings such as Apart Together, introduced with the idea that a long-term relationship is a commitment to watching your partner decay, a sentiment he depicts as tearily romantic… though you can easily see how with a different perspective the same notion could be played for laughs.
Similar philosophical insights come from the contrast between the two stage musicals he’s scored, considering life to be a journey from the youthful defiance of Matilda to the zen-like acceptance of fate in Groundhog Day. We hear Revolting Children from the former, Seeing You from the latter.
Though he’s endearingly self-conscious about any notion he’s making Very Important Pieces Of Art, that is what he is increasingly drawn towards, with his idiosyncratic take on the idea that life can be awful but we must persevere, cynicism mixed with optimism.
The gig is not a greatest hits anthology – even in well over two hours on stage there are many, many numbers from his comedy catalogue that don’t get an outing – but a retrospective of tracks that mean something to Minchin, all given a new lease of life. Many feature on his forthcoming studio album Time Machine, which has a similar ethos.
The title Songs The World Will Never Hear comes from his early autobiographical track Rock N Roll Nerd, which now has extra meaning for how different his life could have been, had he not got his break.
His love songs – which he keeps careful tally of over the evening – tend to deconstruct soppy romantic ideals with the application of harder realism, but are the more meaningful for being so personal, referring to his decades-long relationship with wife Sarah. I’ll Take Lonely Tonight is especially affecting, describing how he turns down temptations on the road for a love much deeper than instant gratification. A similar brutal honesty infects the Lullaby song, making it edgy – especially in the context of a supposedly soothing genre.
Lest you think he’s getting too earnest, a reprisal of Canvas Bag mocks virtue-signalling celebrities, while The Good Book is one of his lesser-known tracks about one of his favourite subjects: ‘songs that are not respectful of the fact that Jesus is magic.’
Well established by now is his tricksy lyrical dexterity (putting 'meningococcal meningitis’ into another of the love songs) and skill with a well-placed swear word. His introductions to the songs are always witty stand-up, infused with a proud geekiness reciprocated by the audience. You don’t get many crowds who’ll join in with shouting the order of magnitude of the Avogadro number…
Then, of course, there’s the pure showmanship. From the very beginning, when the ‘turn your phone off’ message becomes a theatrical number worthy of Kraftwerk, to the final encore, Minchin and his barnstorming five-strong band deliver a pulsating, energetic performance, pausing only for the moments of tenderness that require them.
Plus there’s a looseness to the show that can only come from being in control of the material and the music, creating a one-night-only feeling that feeds into his assertions about the joys of communication that no AI can ever replicate. Certainly Minchin would defy the algorithms as surely as he defies categorisation.
• Tim Minchin: Songs The World Will Never Hear is on tour until July 14. Tim Minchin tour dates. The album Time Machine is released on July 25. Order
