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."
Denne historien er fra May 05, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra May 05, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
What Can America Expect From Trump 2.0
THE 45TH AND 47TH commander-in-chief will face fewer limits on his ambition when he is sworn in again in January.
New World Order How Will Trump Reshape US Foreign Policy?
DURING THE FIRST TRUMP TERM, Richard Moore, then the political director of the UK Foreign Offi ce and now the head of MI6, has admitted that half of Britain’s diplomats woke up each morning dreading what they might read on the president’s Twitter feed.
Seed drill: what can I make with tahini beyond just hummus?
'Tahini has a beautiful versatility,\" says Fadi Kattan, chef/co-founder of Akub in London and author of Bethlehem, \"from a drizzle over your morning toast or granola, to an earthy background flavour in a sauce, to all sorts of cakes and cookies.\"
Trump unleashed will be even worse than last time's dress rehearsal Jonathan Freedland
Are you ready for Trump unbound? You may have thought the former and future president was already pretty unrestrained, not least because Donald Trump has never shown anything but brazen disrespect for boundaries or limits of any kind. And you would be right. But, as an earlier entertainer turned president – and Trump combines the two roles – liked to say: You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Trump's return is bleak for America and the world
This is an exceptionally bleak and frightening moment for the United States and the world. Donald Trump swept the electoral college and the popular vote -giving him not merely a victory, but a mandate. If many voters gambled on him in 2016, they doubled down this time.
Flower Power
Once a modest sign of remembrance for the war dead, the poppy has increasingly been used as a prop for performative patriotism, and a tool that helps to gauge others' loyalty to an ideal of national sacrifice
When adult children cut the cord
Grownups who cut off contact with their family are often trying to break away after a traumatic childhood. But sometimes the estrangement can be totally unexpected for parents who really believe they've done their best
Battle lines Pyongyang's Russia entente is a dilemma for Xi Jinping
In October 1950, barely a year after the Chinese civil war ended, Mao Zedong sent the first Chinese soldiers to fight in the Korean war. Between 180,000 and 400,000 of Chairman Mao's troops would die in that conflict, including his own son. But it was important to defend North Korea then, Mao reportedly said, because \"without the lips, the teeth are cold\".
The hospital on the frontline of unstoppable gang warfare
It was mid-morning in central Port-au-Prince and already two shooting victims had been rushed into the hospital past a mural instructing visitors to leave machetes and rifles outside.
Small wonders Unravelling the paradoxes of plankton
Scientists are using technology to sequence the DNA of microscopic marine life for the first time-to help us learn more about ourselves
