Minchin proud Matilda coming to Australia

Tim Minchin's beard might not have wowed iconic author Roald Dahl, but his work on Matilda The Musical would have.

"Roald Dahl famously hated beards. Apparently he thought they were dirty," Minchin said during a media launch for Matilda in Sydney on Tuesday.

"I think he would have found me and (playwright) Dennis Kelly almost unbearable."

But the Dahl family gave the Matilda the Musical their tick of approval after seeing it back in 2010.

Minchin, the musical's composer and lyricist, says Dahl's widow Felicity approached him after the performance "and told me that of all the adaptations of his work she had ever seen, Roald would have loved this one best of all".

"And really that was good enough for us," he says.

But it wasn't just the Dahls who loved the show.

Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the adaptation of the beloved children's book began in Stratford-upon-Avon, but soon took London's West End by storm, winning a record-breaking seven Olivier Awards in 2012.

Broadway was next, along with more prizes, with Matilda winning four Tony Awards.

"And now here in gorgeous Sydney we get to start another chapter," Perth-born Minchin says.

On a personal level, Minchin says he's immensely proud to be bringing Matilda the Musical home to Australia, a decade after he left, and contribute to our theatre scene.

"I don't want to just be someone who left it, I want to be someone who put stuff back into it."

In November, the search will begin for the young performers set to fill the shoes of Matilda, before the show kicks off in Sydney on July 28 next year.

"They're not too razzle, dazzle Broadway type kids," Minchin says, so they can show the trials Matilda has had to deal with.

Although "shortness" will also be key.

"They do have to be small because they're playing a five- or six-year-old but the kids we find, you can't believe that they just keep coming, they're so bright," he says.

At the end of the day, Minchin says Matilda the Musical is based on a beloved story, adapted by an amazing playwright and then "musicalised by a foul-mouthed idiot from Perth who managed not to bugger it up."

"It is quirky and a bit dark and full of heart," Minchin says. "I'm unashamedly proud to be a part of it, and very, very excited that it's finally coming home to Australia."

• Matilda the Musical opens at Sydney's Lyric Theatre on July 28, 2015. Tickets go on sale from October 15