Laughter is the key to success

12:53pm Tuesday 30th September 2008

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After an effortlessly lyrical Debussy-esque piano introduction, Tim Minchin sings the first lines of his Peace Anthem for Palestine.

It goes: “We don’t eat pigs, you don’t eat pigs, / It seems it’s been that way forever, / So if you don’t eat pigs and we don’t eat pigs, / Why not not eat pigs together?”

It’s this combination of musical talent and edgy humour that has brought Minchin so much attention since he won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005.

Minchin, 33, who lives in Wood Green, wrote his first song at the age of nine. He says: “Probably the second song I wrote was silly.”

By the time he was in his late 20s, he had written scores for theatre and documentaries, written a musical, acted and played in cover and original bands, as well as, he says, “poured a lot of drinks and made a lot of sandwiches”.

But after several years of audition rejections and failure either to get an agent or entice the interest of record companies, Minchin was considering giving up.

His breakthrough moment came in late 2003, when he decided to separate his comic from his serious songs.

He says: “My motivation was that I was playing my original music and I got the feeling that all the stupid songs were fun, but record labels I was approaching were being put off because they weren’t able to categorise me.

“So I took all the comedy songs out of my band set, and decided to do them in a solo show.

“At the end of the very first show I really did have a moment of thinking, ‘That was wicked’.

“It was like this blinding light, like ‘I could have a job here’.”

From there Minchin refined his style at a small club in Melbourne, before taking a leap of faith and bringing his act to the Edinburgh Festival. The praise he received there was quite unexpected.

“When I look back I didn’t have much confidence in myself,” he says. “I didn’t dream that it would be as enjoyed as it seems to have been.”

It’s not hard to see why record labels would have been non-plussed — in each of his songs he seems to take on a different character, playing variously a middle class rock star wannabe in Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd, a man who has fallen in love with an inflatable woman in Inflatable You, and a pop star preaching environ-mental virtue in Canvas Bags.

His latest show, Ready For This?, focuses more than ever on beliefs, whether they be about sex, death, politics, or having ginger body hair.

“A couple more people walk out than has happened in the past, maybe one every three shows or so,” he says. “I think that means you’re treading the right line.”

Minchin will play at the Millfield Arts Centre, in Silver Street, Edmonton, on November 13, at 8pm. Tickets cost £14 (concessions £12) and are available from the box office on 020 8807 6680. Minchin’s DVD So Rock is released on November 10.