Early November in London saw the recording of the thirty minute Tim Minchin Christmas show. This show will be broadcast on BBC2 at 11.30pm on December 20, so can be heard in Australia (east coast) at 10.30 am on Friday 21/12. Certainly something to listen to at work on the slow pre-Christmas Friday morning before you’re last-minute present buying frenzy. The show was recorded in the beautifully refurbished BBC radio theatre in Oxford Circus.
For this show, recorded in the beautifully refurbished BBC radio theatre in Oxford Circus, Tim has a five piece band (guitar, bass, sax, drums and sister Nell on vocals) and he was seated at a Steinway grand piano. Having the full band meant the show had a very cabaret/jazz club feel and was a big change from the last time I saw Tim, when he had the piano and an occasional backing track. Before the recording started he confessed that he had two new pieces that might not make it into the final show, one was slightly inflammatory and the other was the show’s finale and a beautiful song about what Christmas means for those of a non-religious mindset.
The first song was a very lateral solution to the sadness we so often see in the faces of African children and opened the show up very well. The audience were very supportive throughout the show, although the two people who had made their very own Tim Minchin dolls, I thought, were just verging on the stalkerish side of the equation. The second song was one of the new pieces (written the previous day) was a rebuttal to a review printed in the Guardian two years ago. This was very funny but I felt maybe just a bit too cruel for broadcast, as Tim said some very unkind things about the journalist who gave him one star in one of his first UK shows. It was at this point I decided against getting my notebook out to detail the songs for fear of drawing attention to myself. We then had a delightful song about Tim’s teenage years. This certainly brought back memories of all those parties we had. Not sure a teenager will find it as funny as they are still living the life.
Following this was a song about masochism and ex-girlfriends. There were some excellent jazz solos’s in this piece and it was a delight to see when they did a retake of this song that the solo’s were all different, proving that improv still lives. This was followed by a more festive song about what not to give your children this year (and also solving the obesity crisis at the same time). Maybe not one to hear if you’ve got kids above the weight curve. The penultimate song was called Darkside and had some very sick lines, but also some catchy tunes. Should you whistle once you know the words? Finally we had the Christmas song, which had Tim solo on the piano, singing a song to his infant daughter about what Christmas means and how important family is when you’re far from home and feeling a bit low at this time of the year. This is a beautiful piece and brought a tear to my eye, as it will for anyone who won’t be with their family this festive season. If this was a rush job, I am only the more impressed and I think it should be released as a single.
So there was a bunch of very funny songs, some very fine music and a fair amount of banter from Tim. Maybe not all of the songs are about Christmas but there is the excellent finale and enough laughs to make this a show you will be a fool to miss. There is a repeat on the Sunday and it will be on the internet over Christmas as well, so no excuses.
To listen to BBC Radio click here