On Tuesday 30th August I was fortunate enough to see comedy rock star Tim Minchin‘s performance at Snape Maltings Concert Hall as part of their August prom celebrations. I say ‘fortunate’ for two reasons; firstly because the performance was amazing and will go down in history at Snape; and secondly because, as is the case with the majority of Minchin’s gigs, this performance was completely sold out months in advance of the date. Following the success of his Comedy Prom on the BBC the previous weekend, I was certain that there was no way I’d be getting to see the man himself.
I was one of the unlucky ones who could not get hold of a ticket for love-nor-money and was advised that my only chance of seeing the gig was queuing at the box office on the morning of the performance for one of 20 prom tickets that were to be released at 9:30am. So I arrived with my cushion and magazine to queue with my husband and best friend for the chance to get a ticket – and the 2 hour wait was a tense one, as we had no way of knowing how many people were in front of us in the queue at the second box office in Aldeburgh. Luckily we managed to get 3 prom tickets – which meant sitting on a cushion on the floor at the front of the concert hall, in my opinion the best seats in the house! Very lucky!
Tim Minchin performed his solo show, without an interval, for two hours straight and belted out some of his classic rock comedy tunes including If I Didn’t Have You, Prejudice and Dark Side. He kicked off the show with my personal favourite, the piano-based ballad Rock and Roll Nerd and after some first-class comedy anecdotes, introduced some new material. His lyrics were equally intellectual (despite some excessive swearing in The Pope Song!) as his previous work, and I was delighted to hear that many of his new tunes were slower, more ballad-y and less comedic. These songs certainly reflect Minchin’s status as a respected composer (and now writer of a west-end musical!) and demonstrated exactly why the world-famous concert hall in Suffolk was packed out with classical fans – he is a musical genius.
Minchin had the audience singing along during the songs and rolling in the aisles as they joined him on the journey through his quick-witted stories and songs. Delighted fans called for an encore and Tim obliged with the beautiful tune White Wine in the Sun and completed his one-man show without a dry-eye in the house.
Thanks Tim, I loved every minute. X
Visit http://www.timminchin.com/ for information on upcoming performances
Related articles
- BBC Proms 2011: Comedy Prom, Albert Hall, review (telegraph.co.uk)
Were you there? what did you think of Minchin’s performance? Get in touch!
