The comedian on his sickly childhood, what made him leave his home town and his Matilda-induced anxiety
Born in 1975 in Northampton and raised in Perth, Australia, Tim Minchin is a musician, comedian, actor, writer and director. Starting out in musical theatre, he turned to comedy in 2003, winning the 2005 Perrier best newcomer at the fringe. In 2008, the Royal Shakespeare Company commissioned him to write music and lyrics for a stage adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda – it has since won seven Olivier awards and four Tonys. He is married with two children and lives in Sydney. His new album, Tim Minchin Time Machine, is out now. Matilda the Musical is playing in the UK and Ireland.
As photos were so rare in the 80s, compared with now, there’s a formality to my physicality here. I look proud, but as I didn’t like primary school, I would have been unhappy that it was time to go to class. I found the whole school experience very scary.
I was a sickly kid. Not in a Dickensian way – I didn’t have consumption – but I wasn’t very hardy. I had asthma and allergies and I was quite deaf for a lot of my childhood. Because of that, I’d get in trouble for not listening in lessons, when in reality I couldn’t hear what the teacher had said.
