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Although, unfortunately, the professional and amateur performance rights for Matilda the Musical are not yet released, the creators of the marvellous West End and Broadway hit are looking forward to releasing a junior version (currently in development) via MTI.

If you are super keen to perform, you don’t have to wait for that, because next week it’ll be possible for your school to get a licence to perform a short version: Matilda the Musical (in 20 minutes) which features five of Tim’s fabulous songs: Naughty, School Song, The Chokey Chant, Bruce and Revolting Children linked by passages and excerpts from the script by Dennis Kelly. This version will be available for a limited time prior to the official release by MTI of the aforementioned Matilda the Musical Junior Version.

Matilda the Musical (in 20 minutes) will be released for schools and amateur youth groups (i.e. performers aged 16 years or younger) in the UK and Ireland ONLY from 4th March, 2014. For more information, and to obtain the rights, please click here to go to the Carasotto website.

At the moment there are no performance rights available to groups anywhere else in the world.

UPDATE (07/03/14): As we have seen some confusion in the comments, to clarify:
This website cannot sign you up to this version, add you to a mailing list for it or give you a licence.
To obtain the rights to Matilda the Musical (in 20 minutes), please visit the Carasotto website.

Australians! It’s the news you’ve all been waiting for: we can finally confirm that Matilda The Musical is heading Down Under!

NSW Premier, Barry O’Farrell confirmed today that the spectacular, multi-award-winning musical, based on the book by Roald Dahl, will make it’s Australian premiere at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney in August 2015.

Tim‘s just as excited as you are about it, saying:

“Working on Matilda has been one of the greatest thrills of my life, and I’ve been aching to let her loose on audiences at home. Most of us grew up reading Dahl – the Australian sense of humour gels so well with his dark, iconoclastic tone. The last time a musical I helped write opened in Sydney, the actors almost outnumbered the audience, the theatre leaked, and my drummer was a bass player. If Matilda’s arrival is half as fun as that was, it’ll be a hoot.”

There’s no news about casting and ticketing yet, but once they’re confirmed, we’ll make sure to let you know all about it.

Looks like we’ll be adding an exciting new chapter to our Matilda story shortly!

Matilda The Musical has won Best West End Show in the 2014 Whatsonstage Awards!

The Whatsonstage Awards are nominated by and voted for entirely by theatregoers and the ticket-buying public and were presented, this evening, at the Awards Ceremony and Concert at The Prince of Wales Theatre, London, hosted by Rufus Hound and Mel Giedroyc. The full list of winners can be found here.

This is how the voting went for The EQUITY Best West End Show:
Les Misérables – at the Queen’s (24.9%)
Matilda the Musical – RSC at the Cambridge (31.4%)
The Phantom of the Opera – at Her Majesty’s (8.1%)
War Horse – at the New London (14.7%)
Wicked – at the Apollo Victoria (21.0%)

Whoop! Whoop!
Sometimes you have to be a little bit celebratory…

Thank you for voting!

*****

Oh! If your voting fingers are still twitching, you can satisfy them with a vote here for Matilda to win the BBC Radio 2 Audience Award at the 2014 Oliviers.

Voting closes at 5pm (GMT) on 4th March 2014 and the awards ceremony is on Sunday 13th April, at the Royal Opera House.

Matilda The Musical, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Dodgers, has announced a North American Tour commencing in May 2015.

Following technical rehearsals and performances in New Haven at the Shubert Theater, the tour will officially open at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Amongst others, there will be dates in San Francisco’s SHN Orpheum Theatre, Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre and Dallas’ AT&T Performing Arts Center. A full touring schedule will be announced along with the casting at a later date and we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Matilda The Musical opened in April 2013 at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre to host of marvellously glowing reviews, won a slew of awards and has been celebrated on 10 “Top Ten” lists for 2013, including TIME Magazine’s #1 Show of the Year.

If you’d like to catch up with how Tim came to write the music and lyrics for the stage musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s famous book, then the story so far is here. You’ll also find the reviews and awards Matilda has received, both in the West End and on Broadway, along with photos and videos marking key chapters.

After its release last year on iTunes, the audio from the So F**king Rock Live DVD is finally available on CD too!

As Tim so eloquently put it in his blog post, “It is simply the audio from the DVD with the stand-up bits cut out, remixed by the clever ears and fingers of Mr Pete Clements.” The full tracklist looks a little bit like this:

1. So F**king Rock
2. Inflatable You
3. Rock ‘N’ Roll Nerd
4. Mitsubishi Colt
5. Ten Foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins
6. If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)
7. F Sharp
8. Canvas Bags
9. Nothing Can Stop Us Now
10. Some People Have It Worse Than I
11. If You Really Loved Me
12. Peace Anthem for Palestine
13. You Grew On Me
14. Dark Side
15. Not Perfect
16. Second Encore

You can grab yourself one of these silvery discs of goodness from this very website, whether you’re in Europe, North America or Australasia and if you’re in the UK, you might also get the opportunity to spot one of them in the wild at your local record shop!

me!

I’ve just been sent final figures from the Koko gig in London in December.

We raised a total of £13,561.69 for the amazing work Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) are doing in Syria.

Jut wanted to say thanks very much for coming and putting money into buckets and generally being awesome.

Here is the MSF website if you’re interested in getting more involved.

In other news, I’m in LA with the flu. Hope you’re all well.

tx

you!

me ‘n’ Pete Clements

“Rock For The Docs” photos by house photographer Joe Traylen.

A quick heads-up, just in case you’ve not yet noticed:

Ready For This? and Tim Minchin And The Heritage Orchestra Live at the Royal Albert Hall were recently put up on Netflix UK.

Netflix UK has a month by month subscription for streaming various Films and TV programmes.

‘Ready For This?’ was filmed, in 2010, in front of a justifiably enthusiastic audience during a sell-out, 3-night run at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, in London. It features: Prejudice, If I Didn’t Have You, Bears Don’t Dig On Dancing, Canvas Bags, Confessions, White Wine In The Sun, the acclaimed nine minute beat poem; Storm and many more.

The spectacular ‘Tim Minchin And The Heritage Orchestra Live at the Royal Albert Hall’ was filmed in April 2011. Tim is joined on stage by the awesome 55-piece Heritage Orchestra, led by Jules Buckley and by Pete Clements on bass and Brad Webb on drums. The concert features new orchestrations of favourites such as You Grew on Me, Not Perfect, Dark Side, Prejudice and Rock `n’ Roll Nerd, as well as Thank You God, Lullaby and many more.

Update for those asking on Twitter and elsewhere: there’s no word yet about Tim’s shows going up on Netflix USA or elsewhere, but if we hear anything we will announce here.

Hi all,

It seems that our wee secret has leaked: I’m working on a stage musical adaptation of the iconic and brilliant Danny Rubin script, Groundhog Day. Danny himself is writing the ‘book’, I’m writing music and lyrics, and Matthew Warchus (of Matilda fame) is directing.

For the handful of you who’ve never seen the film (philistines!), Groundhog Day is about a cantankerous weatherman who is sent to a small town to do a weather report, and gets stuck in a time loop, living the same day over and over again until – eventually – he figures out how to be less of a miserable, egotistical git. It’s about selflessness and acceptance and love and time and life and death and all that good stuff.

The 1993 Sony Pictures film was directed by Harold Ramis and starred Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, and is a true comedy classic. However, it would be impossible to try to translate the style and tone of the movie to stage… and even if it were possible, it wouldn’t interest me. (Or Danny or Matthew, for that matter).

Our version of Groundhog Day is going to be both instantly recognizable, and utterly different.

The central conceit is perfectly suited to the theatre, in my opinion. In fact, I think many of its ideas could be enhanced by the stage. It has the potential to be complex, dark, visually fascinating, and thematically rich, whilst still being a joyous romantic comedy with cool tunes and lots of gags. It’s certainly not an easy job, and I’m truly honoured – and genuinely excited – that Danny is letting me have a crack at it.

The idea of a Groundhog Day musical is not new; famously, Stephen Sondheim was rumoured to be working on the idea five or ten years ago. I’ve actually spoken to him about it (he is – if you’re wondering – a brilliant, witty, charming man), and the truth is he was only ever tossing the idea around. It got put on the back burner, and he is now happy that we’re making a go of it. We have Steve’s blessing – and it’s a blessing I value enormously.

So, we’re aiming for a workshop sometime towards summer, and hopefully we’ll have it on stage within a couple of years. But who knows? Maybe the whole project will get caught in a temporal vortex and we won’t be able to finish writing it until we’ve achieved wisdom.

Either way, you won’t hear any more about it from us until we know where and when we’re going to put it on. Back to work!

tx

PS I actually played two of the ballads from GhD at Koko in Camden a few weeks ago. Not sure whether, out of context, they meant anything to those of you who were there, but I hope you enjoyed them. I suspect some of you guessed the project ages ago anyway!

Matilda, West End

You may have already noticed that Matilda The Musical has been nominated for Best West End Show in the 2014 Whatsonstage Awards. These awards are nominated by and voted for purely by theatregoers and the ticket-buying public.

Voting opened in December and Matilda is up against Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, War Horse and Wicked. Sterling competition.

Matilda is currently second, just 2% behind Les Mis… the show that pipped Matilda to the post for this award last year! Close huh?!

So if you’d like to help make it Matilda‘s year for this award, you can cast your votes here!

There are a great many categories and you can only vote once but you can vote in as many or as few categories as you like. The Best West End Show category is near the bottom of the list.

Voting closes on the 31st January, 2014 and the winners will be announced on the 23rd February, at the Awards Ceremony and Concert.

Matilda, Broadway

In more exciting award news: The RSC’s Matilda Broadway cast album has been nominated for a 2014 Grammy Award, in the musical theatre category! The 56th Grammy awards will take place on the 26th January, 2014, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. More information here and here.

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The spectacular Jesus Christ Superstar, with Tim playing his, award winning, dream role of Judas Iscariot, is on Channel 5 on Monday 30th December, 2013, at 11:35pm.

The show was filmed over two nights at Birmingham’s NIA, for a delighted and emotional crowd, when it first toured UK arenas in 2012. The fabulous cast also includes Melanie C as Mary Magdalene, Alexander Hanson in the role of Pontius Pilate, Chris Moyles as King Herod and winner of the ITV prime-time show Superstar Ben Forster in the title role of Jesus.

So if you want to see Tim brooding, rocking and [spoiler alert] dying in dreadlocks and tatts, now’s your chance. If the late time slot doesn’t suit you then fear not, it should appear on Demand 5 shortly after it airs.

UPDATE 30/12/2013: Our apologies – Channel 5 inform us that they will not be putting this up on Demand 5. However, if you can’t catch or record the programme, the DVD and Blu-ray are available in UK shops and online from various places including the JCS website and Amazon. (The DVD and Blu-ray are also available in Australia and the US.)

Here are a few (spoilery) clips to whet your appetite:
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Tim will be joining a stellar line-up of guests for Jingle Bell Joe: Radio 2 House Party on Monday 23rd December, 2013, 10pm – 11pm (GMT) on BBC Radio 2.

Recorded live, before an appreciative studio audience, the show is hosted by singer-songwriter and pianist Joe Stilgoe who brings his band and plenty of seasonal fun and festivities to the proceedings.

Joe will be ‘singterviewing’ Tim at the piano(s) and Tim’ll perform a much loved favourite or two. Other treats include Dutch jazz vocalist Caro Emerald, performing A Night Like This, and 6 Music and Radio 2 DJ Cerys Matthews dueting with Joe on Baby It’s Cold Outside. You’ll also hear dashing Homeland star Damian Lewis as you’ve never heard him before.

So settle down with an appropriate beverage in front of a suitable source of twinkly light and heat, switch on the digital supplier of your radio signal and allow this delightful festive fayre to wash over you.

Remember: BBC Radio Two is available internationally, so you’ll be able to catch this worldwide if you can listen live.

If you miss it on the evening then the show will be up on BBC iPlayer, for those in the UK, shortly after it airs.

Tim and Joe at Ronnie Scott’s earlier this year

Joe has a shiny new album out on Christmas Eve Eve too: Songs On Film.

Hello,

Below are a few bits of news that may be of interest. Bit of a gig, bit of a record, some charity stuff… that sort of thing.

I hope you’ve all had wonderful years.

Peace be with you, and also with me. etc

xTim

Rock for the Docs

I’m doing a gig at Koko in Camden on Thursday 19th December. Doors open at 7pm, action being onstage from 8pm.

All proceeds will go to Medicins Sans Frontieres; specifically their incredible, brave, and important work in Syria. You can get tickets here. They are £22 including a booking fee.

I’ll be playing non-comic originals and some not-at-all-amusing covers with my motley band of moderately talented musicians. There will be a support act of some sort, too, but we don’t know who it is yet. In fact, we don’t really know what the gig is going to be, except that it will be very good fun, and for a very good cause.

To reiterate: this is not a comedy gig. Well, not deliberately.

You should seriously consider coming.

A message from Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Find out more: http://www.msf.org.uk/syria

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Timmy Atticus in Red, is dancing for you.

Australians! Are you ready to watch Tim cavorting naked on your telly screens? Well get excited because that’s exactly what’s going to happen! (Of course, if that doesn’t float your boat, it’s also a chance to check out how good he is at pretending to be someone else.)

From Monday 25th November 2013, airing at 10:30pm, Eleven will be showing season 6 of Californication, which features Tim’s silky-smooth acting skills in the role of the washed-up, drugged-up, frequently nude rock ‘n’ roll star Atticus Fetch, as he attempts to turn one of Hank Moody’s books into a Broadway musical. There will be laughs, tears and, of course, songs.

Atticus will feature in the vast majority of episodes, alongside other rock stars guest actors like Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols and Marilyn Manson from Marilyn Manson, so if you don’t want to miss out on any of his debauched antics, be sure to watch the whole season!

If you haven’t seen the preview clip yet, here it is again to lull you into a a state of excited anticipation:

The cast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical will be kicking off the annual BBC Children in Need 2013 Appeal tomorrow night, Friday 15th November from 7:30pm on BBC One with a very special performance.

Viewers will be treated to a marvellous medley of numbers from the show. So if you’ve not yet seen it you can enjoy a fabulous taster of Tim’s music and lyrics. If you have seen it you’ll be able to re-live some of your favourite moments.

Since 1980 Children in Need, the BBC’s UK charity, has raised over £600 million to change the lives of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK. To donate please visit: www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey.

We already let you know, here, that the Broadway production of Matilda The Musical would be releasing its own original cast recording, but that was quite a while ago, so here we are again to tell that you it’s now available to buy in the shops, as well as from various digital retailers.

Apart from the brilliant Broadway cast, it differs from the equally marvellous London Cast Recording in that it includes ‘The Chokey Chant’ as well as all three of the acrobat and the escapologist stories as bonus tracks! (Bertie Carvel and Lauren Ward reprise their West End roles as Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honey).

The Deluxe Edition has yet more bonus tracks: ‘Perhaps a Child’, which had to be cut after the first Stratford-Upon-Avon performance and another version of ‘Naughty’ featuring all four of the original Broadway Matildas: Oona Laurence, Milly Shapiro, Sophia Gennusa and Bailey Ryon. Of course, all tracks can be downloaded individually too, if you simply wish to complete your collection.

For the full tracklist and to preview the songs, simply search for Matilda The Musical on your favourite digital retailer’s site, to yield all the editions available in your country or take a quick look on the iTunes listing at the Matilda the Musical (Deluxe Edition) [Original Broadway Cast Recording].