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Shaun Tan’s 15 minute animation, The Lost Thing, based on the children’s book of the same name, has been Oscar nominated in the Animated Short Film category!

Why is this exciting news? Well, lest you’ve not yet heard of the already multi-award winning The Lost Thing, you may be interested to know that Tim provides the solitary voice in this film, playing the part of the narrator. We’ve already posted some videos about the making of it here, including footage of Tim during a voice record session.

The full list of nominees for Best Animated Short Film are:

Day & Night, Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo, Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let’s Pollute, Geefwee Boedoe
The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary), Bastien Dubois

The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony, on the 27th February in Los Angeles.

A second show at the SECC in Glasgow has just been announced! On the 8th May 2011, Tim will be there along with the lovely Heritage Orchestra, performing, well, what he’s been performing since December.

If you missed out on tickets to the April date, act quickly and bagsy yourself the best seats in the house as tickets have just gone on sale today! Tickets can be bought online from TicketSoup.

Last night Tim performed at the Australia Day Foundation 2011 Gala Dinner, at Australia House and found himself presented with an award:

Young Australian Achiever of the Year in the UK

“To have achieved so much in his career at a young age is perhaps not surprising given Tim Minchin’s many talents and his focus. The Foundation awards great talent and in recognition of his extraordinary accomplishments to date the Australia Day Foundation consider Tim Minchin a worthy recipient of the 2011 Young Australian Achiever of the year in the UK award”, said Philip Aiken, Chairman of the Australia Day Foundation.

The Australia Day Foundation, gathers Australians in the UK to celebrate Australia’s national day, which falls on 26 January. This award has been presented annually since 2005. Previous recipients are Harry Kewell, Shane Osborn, Joe Roff, Chloe Chick, Matt Wilkin and Dr Ainsley Newson.

Also recognised and honoured last night were goldsmith Stuart Devlin who was awarded Australian of the Year in the UK and Honorary Australian of the Year went to former British High Commissioner to Australia, Lord Alastair Goodlad.

Congratulations Tim!

Here’s a useless fact for you. Did you know that the original planned name of the Royal Albert Hall was The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences? It’s true; it’s on Wikipedia.

Why do I mention this? Well, the arts and science will be meeting (kind of) at this prestigious venue when Tim performs there on the 28th April 2011 with The Heritage Orchestra!

Yes, you read that right. Tim’s performing at the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences Royal Albert Hall. Sure, he’s performed there before, but this time it’ll be all about him, his silly songs and his 55-piece symphony orchestra!

Tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am.

Tickets

Thought we ought to show this to you people who either haven’t been able to see Conan or haven’t looked this up on YouTube already. It’s the official video of Tim making his US telly debut with the oldie (but goodie), ‘Inflatable You’, which was correctly predicted by eight of you on the last blog about Conan. Enjoy!

Tim’s added two futher dates, in May, to his 2011 UK orchestra tour:

10th May 2011, SHEFFIELD Motorpoint Arena
Tickets available online here 9am Friday 14th January

11th May 2011, LIVERPOOL Echo Arena
Tickets on general sale here 10am Friday 14th January

Although, if you take a peek at Tim’s official fansite and forum Angry (Feet) you may learn something to your   advantage…

Tickets are priced at £35, plus booking fee and will also be available from Ticketmaster from 9am tomorrow.

“If you’re going to play big spaces, this is the way to do it; with a 55-piece orchestra and a juggernaut full of showmanship, making this a big show in every sense…a superlative night out.” (Chortle)

“Minchin…the insanely gifted Australian is rounding off the year with an audacious show that sees him accompanied on stage by the 55-piece Heritage Orchestra…Taken all in all, a thing of jaw-dropping wonder.” (Daily Telegraph, London)

For all the news posts we’ve done about TV appearances, this one’s definitely a first! That’s to say, it’s the first time that it’s been for the USA!

So, your exciting news is that Tim will be providing the entertainment on Wednesday night’s Conan, alongside interviews with Ice Cube and Dennis Leary! You’ll be wanting to tune your TV into tbs at 11/10c to catch him in all his glory.

Aussies, you too can see this as it’s being shown on GEM on Friday at 11:30pm.

Despite the pair being fellow gingers, Tim has already tweeted that he won’t be performing Prejudice due to ‘ginger’ not being a well-known enough phrase for a red-head in America so what do you reckon he’ll play instead?

Tim and Robert by kind permission of UKTV

Tim joins Robert Llewellyn on Carpool on the 12th January 2011, 8:30pm on Dave. The other guest that episode is David Baddiel.

Robert Llewellyn, who you’ll probably know from Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge, started Carpool, a very successful video podcast, some time ago. Uniquely, he interviews people of interest and celebrities as he picks them up and drives them to their destination. It was picked up by the UK digital TV channel, Dave.

The series started last year, with guests including: Chris Addison, Ross Noble, Rufus Hound and Rob Brydon, had a brief winter break over Christmas and will be back on our screens with Tim on the 12th January.

You can find more information on the show and watch a few preview snippets of Tim (being a nerd) and David from the upcoming show here. The page talking about Tim on the show, and with that photo of Tim and Robert can be found here.

Where do you reckon Robert will be driving Tim then?

Another year and another set of Chortle Award nominations, only this time Tim’s up for three, which is more than any of the other nominees!

He’s up for ‘Best Tour‘ with his orchestra show, ‘Best DVD‘ with ‘Ready For This?’ and, once again, ‘Best Musical/Variety Act‘

Last year, Tim had a 100% success rate, being nominated for, and subsequently winning, the ‘Best Musical/Variety Act Award’. Can he do it again this year? Well that’s all up to you, the lovely public! Voting is open now until 5pm on Sunday 16th January.

You’re still here? Oh, you want a link? Well then click here to vote!

(don’t forget, you don’t have to vote for Tim, just if you’re that way inclined)

If you fancy rocking in the UK New Year in an irreverent, hilarious and at the last gorgeously sentimental manner with a mischievous Australian musician, then you’ll be pleased to hear that Tim’s going to be on E4 at 23.35 on New Year’s Eve.

The show is billed as Tim Minchin: Live and seems to include inaccurate listings information giving details of his ‘Ready For This?’ show.  It is described as a repeat, so it is more likely to be a re-showing of ‘So F**king Rock’: a 2 hour performance recorded at The Bloomsbury Theatre in London in 2008. It contains material from ‘Dark Side’ and ‘So Rock’ including Inflatable You, Rock n Roll Nerd, Canvas Bags, Dark Side, Angry (Feet), You Grew On Me, Peace Anthem for Palestine, Mitsubishi Colt and lots more.

Witness Tim obsess about shoes and get stuck up a comedy alley…
Think “Gee, that guy’s deep…”
Enjoy.

Happy New Year!
xx

Tim’s added a second date in sunny Los Angeles, on the 11th January, at the Largo.

Tickets are on sale now, priced at $20. The box office details and online booking link can be found on the gigs page.

The first LA date sold out in less than 24 hours so if you want to go get clicking!

Think you can handle a second date with Tim?

I’m on my couch. This year has involved very little time on couches for me, due to activities requiring a more upright posture than that which couches encourage. But the work year is over and the inevitable post-tour flu has arrived so the couch is suddenly ideal.

Sofa. The English call it a sofa. Sofa. So good.

I’d love to write a witty Christmas blog, but I think I’ve said all I could possibly hope to say already this year, in various forms, about various things, and I’m too snotty and shivery to think anyway. If you want to read the sort of thing I might write if I were feeling less knackered, here’s a column I wrote some years ago about Christmas.

But what I really want to do is acknowledge debt. I feel ridiculously grateful for the cool opportunities I’ve had this year and the support I’ve received in trying not to bugger them up. I have met and worked with dozens of people who have taught me so much and with whom I’ve had large measures of fun. It would be absurd to name everyone, but the entire companies of both “Matilda” and the Heritage Orchestra Tour are the objects of a great deal of my particular brand of love.

The only names I do want to name are those of Linzy and Shell, who run my online life. Linz started up Angry (Feet).com a few years ago, and has gone on to run my Facebook page and my Myspace page (RIP) and a lot of the content on this site. And Shell appeared in my life a couple of years ago and started doing incredible work to keep on top of it all too. They are incredibly good to me.

And thank you to you too. (< – cool sentence). If you are reading this, you are probably one of the insane, lovely people who keep tabs on what I get up to and do crazy shit like watch my shows and buy my DVDs and generally be enthusiastic and nice so that I can keep making stuff I want to make. I’m sorry that I haven’t got to meet so many of you this year, but I never take for granted how lucky I am to have such cool, thoughtful supporters.

That’s all I guess. My daughter has the flu too – I’d better go stick some drugs in her face.

If you’re interested in an overview of the status of the various things I’ve been beavering away at, read below.

Otherwise. Thank you thank you thank you. Merry Christmas. Peace be with you.

xtim

(more…)

A second Orchestra Tour date has been added in Edinburgh on Saturday 16th April 2011, at the Edinburgh Playhouse.

Tickets are available from Ticketmaster here.

Further information and ticket links for the other three dates in Scotland: Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen can be found by clicking the GIGS tab above or here.

Ah…springtime in Scotland with a somewhat springy musician!

Tim will be flying across the Atlantic at least four times next year (there and back, twice) as we can confirm two appearances in America. Yes, you read that correctly!

The first appearance is in a matter of weeks, on the 12th January at the Largo in LA. Tickets are on sale now, priced at a mere $20, which is a bit of a bargain if you ask me. The box office details and online booking link can be found on the gigs page.

The second appearance will be in May at The Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey. Weekend tickets are on sale now and day tickets will go on sale on the 4th Jan. Again, links can be found on the gigs page.

Yes, this is all that’s confirmed and no, we don’t know if or when other dates will be added. By all means though, do “demand” Tim to play in your area on Eventful.com as it’ll help prove that you guys want to see Tim as much as the rest of the world!

Can’t wait a couple of months to see Tim playing with you local symphony orchestra? Well fear not because ABC2 are showing ‘Ready For This?‘ tomorrow night, 21st December, at 8:30pm!

I know you probably all have the DVD but this is the perfect time to grab your grannies, aunts, uncles and favourite pastor and introduce them to the world of Tim. Who could ask for a better Christmas present than that? I know I certainly can’t think of anything I’d like more!

You will be watching, right?