Tim Minchin walks in dressed in a close-fitting navy suit with neatly buttoned waistcoat and whips off his trilby and puts it aside. His hair hangs below his shoulders, and his eyes, minus the black eyeliner he wears on stage, have a disarming warmth. You cannot help but feel a connection on the strength of his smile alone.
Minchin is a phenomenon: a 37-year-old Australian satirist, composer and pianist who can fill London's Albert Hall with his one-man shows (with symphony orchestra as back-up). But it is as the lyricist of the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) musical of Roald Dahl's "Matilda" that he has become the hottest of properties. "Matilda the Musical," directed by Matthew Warchus and with book by Dennis Kelly, won so many awards — four Tonys and seven Oliviers — that it earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
And, as if all this were not enough, Minchin can act. He is just back from Sydney where he played Rosencrantz in Tom Stoppard's comedy "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead;" he has recently appeared in the U.S. television series "Californication;" and he is about to sing for his last supper as he reprises the role of Judas in a U.K. arena tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar."