Tim Finn On Dedicating 'White Cloud', A Show About His Motherland, To "All Mums"

Tim Finn's debut musical Ladies In Black is running at Sydney's Lyric Theatre as part of Sydney Festival, before touring for return seasons in Brisbane and Melbourne. Finn is also performing in The Fiery Maze, his collaboration with poet Dorothy Porter, for Sydney Festival at the moment before another of his projects, White Cloud, opens in Melbourne the day after The Fiery Maze's closing performance. Phew! Slow down already, Finn, 'cause you're making us feel like slackers!  

Talking us through White Cloud, Finn reveals, "It started as a one-man show. I now have a guitarist with me. But it's sort of a performance piece that myself and a New Zealand playwright Ken Duncum wrote. And he would write some prose and some poetry, and I would write a song, and we were sort of bouncing backwards and forwards for a year or so trying to create a show that spoke of identity growing up in New Zealand, 'cause that was the one thing we had in common and we decided to start there. And identity is quite a hazy and confused thing for a lot of New Zealanders, so we just wanted to explore that territory."

When asked whether White Cloud incorporates some of his own family history, Finn responds, "Definitely. In fact, towards the end of the show, it becomes quite deeply personal... Mum's no longer with us and, to some extent, I dedicate the show to our mum and all mums, I guess. And also mother as in motherland, you know, mother country."

Some of Finn's father Richard's 8mm home movies were utilised by video artist Sue Healey when creating "a beautifully edited film" to accompany White Cloud. Healey's film runs along "behind the whole show", which Finn describes as "immersive". "I think anybody who is interested in ancestry and family will relate," he offers.

On his own role during the performance, Finn explains, "I read from memoirs, old... things from the 1800s et cetera: little stories, little jewels that Ken found. I also read his poetry and then I sing songs that I've written."

Finn is a celebrated and prolific songwriter as demonstrated through his Split Enz, Crowded House and solo output. Crowded House were inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame last year while Split Enz were inducted back in 2005. Finn's songs were used in Poor Boy, a play starring Guy Pearce that was selected as the opening production for MTC's Sumner Theatre back in 2009. On his "pre-existing songs" that were threaded through Poor Boy ("a play with songs"), Finn points out, "Not all the songs were well-known. It wasn't, like, all the hits; it was some quite obscure stuff that the writer Matt Cameron dug out, 'cause he's quite aware of my back catalogue." So Cameron was quite the fan then? "Well he's a stalker, yeah," Finn chuckles, "but he admits it."