As part of a longer interview, Tim Minchin discusses the writing and reception of Groundhog Day (which will open in Minchin's native Australia later this month):
The runaway success of Matilda opened a host of doors for Minchin, and in the 13 years since, he’s been approached by just about everyone to write just about everything. But nothing captivated his attention until he and Warchus thought about the possibility of doing a musical based on the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. However, this is not a “movie musical”, a translation to stage of the type that has taken over Broadway, the West End and our own theatres in the past decade.
“Groundhog Day is an incredible text,” Minchin says. “And I like the movie very much. But that’s not what I like. And what people seem to misunderstand is that the movie is not the text. Because there’s no Bill Murray, you can’t light it like that, you can’t shoot it.
“What is the movie? The movie is the director, the actors, the light, the camera angles, the edit, the cut, the soundtrack? They’re all absolutely useless to us. In fact, if you get addicted to the shot in your head, you’re f---ed, right? Because that’s not the lens. An audience is not a camera.”
Minchin and his collaborator Danny Rubin, who wrote the film and the book for the show, saw in the story a world of possibilities, perhaps even better suited to stage than film.
“It’s about how to live and, and it’s a redemption tale. Like A Christmas Carol, or It’s a Wonderful Life, but bigger than that. And then it didn’t take me long to think, f---, I’m writing songs for a story that allows you to lean into the idea of a life as a day. We’re born in Punxsutawney dawn... The sun rises on our musical, and actually it ends with a sunrise as well when he’s finally out ... And so we get to use a day as the central metaphor. But then we got weather, this is another huge metaphor, the clouds will come and tides will turn and all I have to offer is tomorrow. We have hope, and hope as a positive thing, but hope as a negative thing because hope is aspiration and aspiration stops you being in the present.
“And then you have all the specific things, narcissism, the idea that we’re all the centre of the musical of our lives, when we have that massive metaphor, that world is a stage and we’re all merely players.
“And we have the extension of that metaphor, which is when you’re a f---ing musical, doing eight shows a week, doing the same thing over and over again, in the case of Groundhog Day, several times a night with the same beats. It’s like hell. And if we’re all actors trapped in the musical of our life, what’s that? What can we do with that?”
What he can do with that brain-bending, fourth wall-shattering concept is an Olivier-winning show that won over virtually every critic who has seen it, including The New York Times′ notoriously difficult-to-please Ben Brantley (who called Minchin “insanely talented”).
It premiered at The Old Vic in London in 2016 to sellout crowds and returned in 2023, becoming the highest-grossing production in The Old Vic’s history. In between, though, was a troubled Broadway run that failed to find an audience, despite critical raves.
What went so wrong in New York, I ask? Minchin is, as always, unflinchingly honest.
“Broadway has a zero-sum,” he says, considering the question carefully between bites of pasta. “It can sustain at maximum two new hits, and if you come late in the season where Dear Evan Hanson and Come From Away have surprised everyone, partly because of some really good producing, throwing money [around].
“And then you’ve got Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet [of 1812] in the same year trying to find its audience with Josh Groban at the centre. And you come in, you’re just f---ed. We come in with a slightly overly thoughtful, quite dark, dense, complex, untraditional musical, you can get all the five-star reviews and Tony nominations you like, you’re just f---ed. We just got unlucky.”
The most appropriate thing for Groundhog Day to do in the face of failure, of course, was to dust itself off and try again. Its London revival was even more popular the second time around, but Minchin thinks Australians are the true target audience for the show.
“Australians got Matilda like the Brits did,” he says. “The dark and the light. And I feel the same way about Groundhog Day’s humour. Danny’s, which is this really hilarious Jewish American [sense of humour], he’s so funny. And then my slightly harder edge, slightly obsessed with death and sex. We worked very hard to make sure that felt seen.”
It’s clear he has a genuine passion for the show. “I wish you’d seen it,” he tells me. “I need people to write about it having seen it.”