Funny, surprising and moving, Forgetting Tim Minchin is a must-see piece of new Australian writing filled with witty and heartbreaking original songs.
After moving back home during the pandemic, Jules (played by the show’s creator, Jules Orcullo) has spent their entire savings investing in their craft as a playwright. It’s not gone well. Her room is a mess, too. The set is giving peak millennial vibes: fairy lights, unwashed laundry, and a barely-living pot plant. Set and Costume Designer Hailley Hunt has done a great job of making the most out of the small space at Belvoir’s humble Downstairs Theatre whilst not sacrificing the maximalism that really illustrates the messy artist’s life.
Starting out on stage as the audience enters, Orcullo states directly to the assembled onlookers that the story they’re about to tell is 100 per cent made up. It’s fiction. Still, Orcullo’s endearing and charismatic energy makes you completely fall back into the story without second guessing. Forgetting Tim Minchin essentially explores three main threads, and each is well articulated with entertaining songs before moving on to the next. Further to the credit of Jules Orcullo’s writing, each thread coalesces beautifully into a tear-inducing climax.
In the first “thread”, there are songs that tie into Jules’ existential anxiety around what it means to be an artist, which simultaneously provide a very contemporary meta-commentary of the musical genre and the arts industry itself. One specific line – “Can you call yourself an emerging playwright in your thirties?” – felt like a personal attack against this intrepid critic (and, judging by the laughs, most of the audience too).
As the plot moves along, the show poses questions about art and authenticity. Does new work always have to be based on personal experience? Is there still space for unapologetic fiction? Jules’ dreams come true when they land the exciting opportunity to write a brand new musical with their childhood icon and idol: Tim Minchin. As the creative developments go on and the pair work together via Zoom, Tim is exposed to snippets of Jules’ interactions with her first-generation Filipino mother (played by Nova Raboy). He becomes set on the idea that the musical should be about her migrant story. Tim (who now personifies the system) increasingly pressures Jules to write her mother’s journey, supposedly for the sake of platforming authentic, multicultural Australian stories.
To break the fourth wall for a moment, this is a tension that I’ve often felt myself as a somewhat professional creative. As a brown guy, there’s this conflict that I feel when I get opportunities in my career. Was I invited because I’m good at what I do? Or am I there because my “brownness” looks good optically? Or is it both? The same extends to getting funding or platforms to produce my own work. I know that, fundamentally, a play that explores my ethnic identity will have better odds of getting up than a work of identity-less fiction. And while I do want to talk about my own experiences, I also would love to know that I could be rewarded for creating great work, no matter the DEI objective it does or does not fulfil.
The conflict Jules faces is exactly that. She can tell the story the system expects and be included – or, she can refute the expectation, and lose the seat at the table all together. Spoiler alert – she decides to do the latter. Not only is Jules dropped from the project, but the mere inference that Tim’s forcing of the migrant narrative was on the spectrum of racism is met with a lawsuit. There’s a cacophony of noise, tensions, and unanswered pleas from Jules’ mother. Jules is emotionally exhausted and broken. An audio snippet of a call from the doctor’s office plays, which moves the play to its final and truly disarming thread.
Without giving too much away, Orcullo’s succinct storytelling steers the show to a moving close that brought me to tears.
As far as new Australian work goes, Forgetting Tim Minchin is an absolute gem. Each conversation the narrative poses never outstays its welcome, nor has it been dramaturge’d into oblivion. Orcullo and Raboy have great chemistry together, and even in a small theatre space where you can see the audience on the other side of the room so clearly, you will feel completely transported into Jules’ world. Bring some tissues, and know that you’re in safe hands the entire way.
Forgetting Tim Minchin is produced by The Joy Offensive and playing Downstairs at Belvoir St Theatre as part of the 25A Artist Initiative. Find out more here.