Chris Hallam reviews the 'Tim Minchin And The Heritage Orchestra - Live At The Royal Albert Hall' DVD...

Comedy and music can be awkward bedfellows. When it works, it can work very well indeed... as with Bill Bailey and Flight of the Conchords. Where it fails, lyrics can be incoherent, or the result can fall between two stools with the jokes not funny enough nor the music good enough to listen to in itself.

The lyrics are very clear for this performance by Tim Minchin at the Royal Albert Hall but unfortunately the show does rather fall into the latter trap. Yes, Minchin is a good singer and the music does sound great but it's hardly the sort of thing you would listen to recreationally. Unless of course, the material was very funny. And, no, this isn't very funny.

Minchin ironically identifies the problem early on singing "nothing ruins comedy like arenas". He's right! The Albert Hall acoustics do rather wreck the atmosphere. It often seems as if no one's laughing at all. There's a running joke throughout about Minchin's supposed conceit and massive ego and - like Ricky Gervais or some of Steve Coogan's characters - it's hard to shake the impression that there's a hint of accuracy in this self portrait. In some way, this seems worse in Minchin's case as for all his success he's not actually a household name yet.

Yet in Minchin's defence the choice of the Royal Albert Hall isn't actually about his ego but about enhancing the music. And it does: very successfully. Tim Minchin is undeniably a both a comic talent and a musical one. But for a variety of reasons, he hasn't managed to combine the two successfully here.

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