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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