ON THE last leg of his Ready For This? tour, Australian polymath Tim Minchin is holding little back. He screams about his neglectful father, wails in support of canvas bags, and allows his shirt to be thrust dramatically behind him by a wind machin
e. All rather epic gestures from a show that revels in the little things that irritate, confuse or embarrass Minchin, such as a dinner party where he verbally cuts down an opinionated New Ager or a negative review that he has been stewing over for three years. All his belligerent rage spews forth in nine-minute beat poems, meandering stand-up or musical satires borrowing heavily from Mozart, Elton John and Jasper Carrott.
Grand finale or not, it's unlikely that Minchin would have forgotten this crowd in a hurry, containing as it did a pair of soused twentysomethings cackling with all their might at the merest of funnies, a would-be crooner heckling him with the eponymous line from Show Me Heaven and some chocolate-carriers hurling a torrent of confectionery on stage. Yet Minchin had the last laugh on them by dragging up a reluctant emo kid to perform a dancing-bear routine
But, despite it all, Minchin is forever destined to be an eye-linered, wild-haired, barefooted end-of-the-pier talent who has somehow infiltrated the indie-comedy establishment without it noticing.
He is able to recognise that his humorous strengths lie in baroque musicianship and lyrical gymnastics, but the confession that he has some way to go for his stand-up ability to be anything other than limited does not give him a pass.
