You know this wouldn’t be a bad lecture or TED talk, on the necessity of critical thinking. Dammit, it would make a pretty timely address to the United Nations too. Imagine that – a guy with a piano on the floor of the General Assembly.
But it’s none of these. It’s a comedy show – and a brilliant one.
Tim Minchin is a stand-up. It’s just that most of his routines rhyme and scan and are set to great music. It’s almost excessive in its wonderfulness, yet unlike other ostensibly clever comedians we could name Ricky Gervais, it’s not about him being clever. It’s about reality, honesty, and where we fail at them.
But it is clever. What did we do before we had comedy this smart? We were laughing at mud and funny-shaped pebbles. More than clever though, it is wise. Insightful, humanistic, brave stuff that takes a stand against a world full of willful ignorance. Is there an audience for that? Well 400 people in a venue in Ireland just gleefully applauded a song with the chorus “F*** the m*********ing Pope”.
And that’s two nights in a row, downstairs in the Radisson as part of the Bulmers Pear Galway Comedy Festival. Which took me aback. I thought I was into something a little bit obscure here, yet even way out west, in a country where Minchin has, to my knowledge, never even been on terrestrial TV, an enthusiastic capacity crowd gave him a standing ovation.
There’s hope for our species yet.