Tim Minchin tells Chris Moyles he sold tour before writing it
Tim Minchin has revealed on The Chris Moyles Show that he sold over 100,000 tickets for his latest tour before writing a single word of it and nearly had a breakdown as a result.
Speaking to Chris and Dominic Byrne on Radio X, Minchin said the tour ended up being his best yet, crediting it to a more balanced approach.
“I think we did 33 shows. They were good shows, and I didn’t, you know… fall apart,” he said. “Usually by the end of a tour, you’re just hanging on by your fingernails.”
Asked whether he had played the London Palladium before, Minchin confirmed he had, joking: “You book the London Palladium, you want to know what you’re going to do. You’d be a fool to book it with absolutely no plan.”
Dominic Byrne pointed out that some comedians name a tour and sell tickets before writing the material. Minchin admitted that was exactly what he did: “I sold 100,000 tickets to this tour without knowing what it was,” he said. “I almost had a nervous breakdown.”
He explained that giving the tour a name provides both him and the audience with a direction, but the early stages were stressful.
“The beginning of this tour, I was as kind of stressed as I get – which, as Chris’s impersonation of me indicates, is not so stressed,” he said.
Minchin also recalled a surreal clash with Oasis, saying he played Manchester on the same night as the band’s long-awaited reunion.
“They were at some skanky football stadium; I was at the Manchester Opera House,” he laughed. “The classier venue. The classier audience!”
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