Tim Minchin: ‘Maybe scrolling the traumas of the world is not in itself a moral act’

The comedian, actor and Matilda songwriter on the benefits of quitting social media and why happiness is like an orgasm

Tim Minchin does not arrive at lunch with the highest hopes. He has only had a couple of hours’ jet-lagged sleep, for a start. And, despite my feeble assurances to the contrary, he knows how it goes: in the course of two hours of no doubt enjoyable free-associating chat he’ll say one thing he will regret (two hours later when he’s on the train to Brighton); and when the story appears, that phrase will be the headline, and it will follow him around on the internet for ever. “So let’s get on with it,” he says, with wide-eyed fatalism. “And let me say even as you press record and I pick up this menu that I have badly mismanaged my calories and I’m really fucking hungry.”

We’re at a very smart gastropub near Victoria in London – the Thomas Cubitt, chosen for its proximity to the station (he’s got to catch the 2.29pm to make it to tonight’s gig). He orders salmon and carrots and chicken parfait to start, and nothing to drink in case he falls asleep on the train, though he might have to have a desperate slurp of mine. We’re here to talk about his book, You Don’t Have to Have a Dream, which collects the fabulously deadpan speeches he has made in recent years to graduating students, with some extra framing essays. If you fear your son or nephew is being seduced by the straight-backed homilies of Jordan Peterson or the grunts of another testosterone-cult talk-show host, buy them this for Christmas.

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