Reactions to Tim Minchin have always been extreme: you either find him brilliant, or pompous, or infuriatingly mannered. Or all three in 80 minutes flat, in the case of this live stream from Sydney, where Minchin and band performed his new album Apart Together in its entirety. But if it sometimes feels that Minchin can’t stop getting in the way of his own best qualities, those qualities (the loveliness of many of the songs, the arch wordplay, the decency of the man) leave the more lasting impression.
Directed by Gary Deans, the whole broadcast looks gorgeous, bathed in blue and amber, the cameras up close and personal with Minchin, his band – and guest star Ben Folds. The show has much in common with last year’s large-scale world-touring set. But those three hours have been pared down, the old comedy favourites excised and only Minchin’s new (largely non-comic) numbers intact. They make little effort to be relatable: they describe our host’s globally successful life and no one else’s. Several are set in airports or on planes; two are about staying faithful to his wife in the face of extreme temptation.
Occasionally, as with Talked Too Much, Stayed Too Long, the navel-gazing gets a bit much. The whole show can feel self-conscious: see Minchin’s mannered vocal technique, barefoot rock-star stylings and the scripted musings (not quite comedy; sort-of spoken word) he recites between songs.
But it’s hard to hold any of that against him – not least because he gets in first with the (self-) criticism. “Remember me as someone who cared,” he sings, “often, but not always, about his hair / Self-righteous when shit wasn’t fair.” At his best, though, self-righteousness falls away, and we’re left with lambent, highly distinctive songs such as If This Plane Goes Down and closing ballad Carry You. It’s a tricky balance, but Minchin can combine self-regard, tenderness and a love of life in a single song, alongside the compulsive wordplay (“dressed à la La La Land”, indeed!) of a recovering comedian. In the words of an earlier Minchin song, it’s Not Perfect along the way – but its finest moments are worth waiting for.
