Creative Types with Virginia Trioli on ABC and ABC iview S2E3 – Virginia Trioli is back in 2025 with a new season of CREATIVE TYPES WITH VIRGINIA TRIOLI, travelling the country and being invited into the very heart of the creative process of some of our most distinctive and prolific artists and performers.
Over six half hour episodes, Virginia meets the true visionary, director George Miller, and learns how his creative process has established him as the most revered action movie director of modern times; singer Kate Ceberano reveals the many forms that her artistry now takes; musician Richard Tognetti takes Virginia behind the scenes to reveal his restless spirit of collaboration; performer Tim Minchin tells Virginia that his life of being just the funny guy is over – he’s looking for something deeper.
Visual artist Tony Albert reveals the pain behind his brilliant and provocative works that connect all of us to a troubled time in Australia’s history; and in what she says will be her last interview, Jenny Kee, takes Virginia deep into her important archive and reveals why she is divesting and preparing for the end of her life.
The unique visions and intentions of these quintessentially Australian artists define our rich and lively culture, as they reveal to Virginia their vulnerabilities, their triumphs and what continues to drive them on.
Episode Three: Tim Minchin
Tim Minchin is pounding the piano beneath the soaring arches of the prow of the Sydney Opera House – he says this is a second home as so many of his musical roads have led here.
Tim says his creative process starts with sitting at the piano, and the “hook” is a clever line, a lyric that he wants to expand to say more. Pop legend Robbie Williams describes Tim as an incredibly impressive man, in whom soul, wit, humour and intelligence meet. But it all started with the pianola in his family home, some piano lessons until he ditched them, and a brave move east, where he played the smallest comedy venues in Melbourne for years – until his big break came from deciding to embrace “weird me’. A celebrated debut at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival turned him into a star.
He had become famous for a savage and rapid wit – but Tim’s tender side started to come through and it cemented his fame.
In 2009 London theatre director, Matthew Warchus saw Tim play his emotional anthem White Wine in the Sun and asked Tim to write Matilda the Musical, seeing in him someone as rare as Stephen Sondheim. Warchus says Tim has “ten more” musicals in him yet.
But climbing back from the creative failure of his cancelled Hollywood film, Larrikin, was hard, and he poured that frustration into the character he wrote and performed in the tv show, Upright. Despite his success and bravado, Tim says it’s been a long journey to self-belief.
Production credit: An ABC Production. Presenter/Writer: Virginia Trioli. Executive Producer/Writer: Jaya Balendra
Creative Types with Virginia Trioli on ABC and ABC iview – Tuesday 15 April at 8.30pm
TV Central ABC content HERE
Creative Types with Virginia Trioli on ABC and ABC iview S2E3
