Come and laugh with a man from Down Under

Introduction

Who he? As usual, let's begin with an intro.

For those of you short on time and who appreciate lazy journalistic comparisons, he's the Australian Bill Bailey.

If you have a little more time, Tim Minchin is an Australian musician, actor, comedian and writer. He was born in Perth, and studied music, theatre and English at the University of Western Australia. His comedy breakthrough came in 2005 when he won an award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (having moved there three years earlier). Later that same year he won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh festival.



He has also appeared on UK TV in BBC Three's Comedy Shuffle, as a guest on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, as well as recording two shows for Radio 2 and appearing on Radio 4's Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better on Radio 4. And there are other theatre roles, musical appearances and documentaries that I'll not bore you with. Essentially, he's a busy man.

This DVD was recorded in May 2008 and is an amalgamation of the 2 previous shows "Dark Side" and "So Rock". It is only available through HMV.

Video and Audio

Nothing to complain about here, a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer as you would expect and a DD2.0 stereo soundtrack that's just fine.

However, there is an added bonus in the form of a DD5.1 soundtrack, which sounds great. It's nice to see a little extra effort made given that there is a lot of music here, and it benefits from the extra channels.

Extra Features

Sadly nothing here.

Conclusion

Tim Minchin is brilliant. His comedy is well judged, his targets are wide-ranging, and his music is excellent.



My previous lazy description of him as "the Australian Bill Bailey" is definitely a compliment but that doesn't tell the whole story. Whilst Bailey is a gifted musician, much of his musical comedy comes from his innovative use of technology, and is perhaps the smaller proportion of his live show (nowadays at least).

With Minchin, the music is very much the larger proportion, and he keeps things simple with brilliant songs played on just piano and guitar (although the opening routine contains other instruments too). He doesn't play it safe either - watch out for a joke very similar to the one that Jeremy Clarkson recently got slaughtered for.

This DVD comes very highly recommended, my only gripe is that you can only buy it from HMV, so they have you over a barrel if you want to buy it. Well worth getting though, you'll be laughing all the way through.