Do we like Tim Minchin?
Our score: 9 out of 10. He backed marriage equality loudly and I found no harmful words or dodgy company, with one song that rattled people.
Tim Minchin is the Australian-British comic-pianist who took a piano and a lot of words to the world and ended up writing Matilda the Musical. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2020 for service to the performing arts and the community. He's a rare thing, a clever entertainer whose public record is mostly about the work.
The famous stoush was in 2016, when he wrote a song calling on Cardinal George Pell to return home and face the royal commission into child sexual abuse. Pell had been cleared to give evidence by videolink from Rome. A fellow panellist on The Project accused Minchin of resorting to personal abuse. Where you land depends on whether you read it as righteous fury or a cheap shot at an individual.
On the harm check, I found no sign of anything nasty: no anti-trans material, no conspiracy theories, no dodgy collaborators. Recent work is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Matilda director Matthew Warchus and writer Enda Walsh, for Amazon MGM and Eon. He's also written the theme song for The Cat in the Hat. He has warned against calling opponents scum, saying it won't win anyone over.
He's also been honest about the rough patches. After a difficult stretch in Los Angeles, with a scrapped DreamWorks film and a stalled Broadway show, he came home to Australia. In 2023 he told the BBC he thought public shaming was grotesque, and said it hits women and people of colour too. You can disagree with him on cancel culture, but he's arguing it from decency, not grievance.
So the verdict: a clear yes. He's on the right side of the thing we care about most, he's still making work for kids and families, and the only real mark is a song that went hard at one powerful man. That's a pretty thin file for someone who's been famous for twenty years.