Tim Minchin Discusses His New Series UPRIGHT, How it Connects to GROUNDHOG DAY, and More!

Tim Minchin recently chatted with The Theatre Times about his new show, Upright. He discussed what he hopes audiences get out of the show, how he sees it relating to his other work, and more.

"It's important to me that people know Upright is a rollicking adventure and it's really entertaining and funny," Minchin said. "We hope the viewer has a great time but we also hope [the show] invokes questions about how much we can control our lives and how life is arbitrary and the universe is chaotic. How do we find peace and realize that we can't control everything?"

He goes on to say, "I hope our show tells a story about what it is to be human in a way that is funny and sad. I think the way you want to engage life should be balanced. In the same, we try to balance this TV show."

Minchin also said that he see some relation between this show, and Groundhog Day, the musical for which he wrote the music and lyrics.

"The stuff I pull toward making is basically existential. There are so many connections between this [Upright] and Groundhog Day," he said. "The journey of the protagonist of Groundhog Day is going from thinking he's sophisticated and trying to control his world with his cynical, too-good-for-this attitude, through to trying to control his world by being benevolent."

Read the full interview on The Theatre Times.

Upright is an Australian drama series screening on Foxtel's Showcase channel in Australia. Upright follows the story of two misfits, Lucky and Meg, who are thrown together by chance in the middle of the Australian desert and forge the unlikeliest of bonds in their quest to get a precious upright piano from one side of the country to the other.

The eight part series is written by Chris Taylor and star Tim Minchin, alongside award-winning writer-actors Kate Mulvany and Leon Ford.

Upright started to air on Sky Atlantic on 28 November 2019 in the United Kingdom, and in Australia from 1 December 2019 on Foxtel.