Tim Minchin, Udderbelly, Old Steine Lawns, Brighton, May 9

2:58pm Monday 12th May 2008

With his crumpled frock coat, black eyeliner and frazzled, back-combed hair, Tim Minchin could have come straight out of a Tim Burton film.

Except, as he wryly acknowledges in his songs, he isn't dark enough.

Privately educated and happily coupled, the Australian musical comedian is a rock nerd who has to pretend something bad has happened to his girlfriend to invoke the requisite musician's angst.

Perhaps it's this lack of imbalance that stopped him becoming a real, messed-up rock star - it's certainly not a lack of talent.

Musical comedy can be a shabby outlet for those with no discernible gift in either genre. Minchin, however, is both an imaginative, technically proficient musician and a very sharp, witty guy. Successfully illustrating the theory that to do comedy well you must do it seriously, he plays with the emotion and skill of a concert pianist.

This is juxtapositioned against the sort of daft lyrics that attempt to tackle the problems in Palestine by pointing out "We don't eat pigs, you don't eat pigs, why not not eat pigs together?".

His rambling, observational, between-song banter doesn't always compare to the elegant comedy of his songs, but it doesn't detract from them either.

Given more time and exposure, it's not hard to imagine Minchin's name becoming almost as big as his hair.

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