The entertaining Tim Mckew joins Regina to talk theatrics and madness in his life on the stage – his Noel Coward show is coming to town for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras..!

Tim McKew is an internationally acclaimed interpreter of Noel Coward, and has performed his sell out Noel Coward shows throughout Australia and internationally from the Sydney Cabaret Convention to the grand Hotel Windsor in Melbourne, from performing for Queen Elizabeth 11s Diamond Jubilee, to High Tea With Noel Coward in the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria and sell out shows in Shanghai and New York, the wild colonial Noel brought the house down!

As an iconic Melbourne gay performer, he is one of the pioneers of Australian cabaret, performance art and punk. His legendary musical queer art happenings and performance art cabarets with a touch of Dada have been staged at galleries, festivals and venues around the world.

He has performed with Louis Nowra and supported Nick Cave, and staged his watershed 1978 queer lunch time performance art, shop-front shows in Melbourne’s Collins Street. In 1979 accompanied by David Evans (De Most) he broke new ground with the Tolarno Galleries Melbourne season and exhibition as Marauding Magda, lampooning Mary Whitehouse, the Catholic Church and homophobia. He brought his dada cabaret Come Down with Us to Sydney in 1979, playing sell-out seasons at Palms and Patches cabaret venues.

Tim went on to sell-out shows throughout Europe, at the famous Blitz Club in London, Cafe Einstein and the punk venue Exxess in Berlin, jamming with Nina Hagen. He also performed at Berlin’s first major gay festival, Gay International All Stars staged next to the Berlin Wall, and Holland’s Flikker [Faggot] Festival in Amsterdam and supporting the band Madness. He and his partner David Evans were the toast of these festivals – they couldn’t get enough of Tim und David Gay Kangaroos!

Tim took his show to Shanghai China – a queer cabaret voice of freedom from the west. He performed in Shanghai’s only underground gay bar, which was packed out, where he came out as their Dowager Empress singing My Way not Mao Way – and now I face the iron curtain! The crowd went wild when he said one day you will have your own Mardi Gras through the streets of Shanghai! The police accused him of promoting homosexuality in China and were looking for him, but he managed to get out of the country just in time.

His career was interrupted by a major heart attack a few years ago which inspired him to record his first CD Lazarus. Highly acclaimed, it includes his techno Queer Anthem ‘Once Upon A Time’ which opened Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival. He is currently putting the finishing touches to his autobiography Thou shalt Not (and so I did!), to be launched in 2021.