Mac. I said I'd never mention it unless people ask me directly. And they give me lots of it for free.

I'll digress from this one a bit. Forgive me. I've been thinking a lot recently about the messages my work puts out. Obviously the wider your audience gets, the more you have a responsibility to put out positive stuff (with great power comes great responsibility, bla bla bla). And I've become increasingly interested in fourth wave feminism for two reasons: firstly, I'm intrigued by the productive and self-destructive way it manifests itself on the internet; secondly: I have a daughter and so I'm interested in what society feeds her.

So, I've been revisiting whether – five years after it was written – Matilda holds up as a text to be proud of. Especially in terms of what it says about women and girls.

Most of the kids in my daughter's school year (she's seven) are understandably obsessed with Frozen! I vaguely know Bobby and Kristen who wrote the songs and they are awesome and I really enjoyed the movie. However, despite its best efforts it doesn't quite manage to undo the princess stereotype which Disney has made so pervasive for 50 years plus. Not all texts have to right the wrongs of the past, of course. And Disney has a right to provide Disney-style stuff.

But it's an odd message, isn't it? It feels like a sort of male ideal feminism: where women are sassy and gutsy and not easily won over. And yet, and yet ... when Let It Go happens the dress gets shorter and the boobs get bigger. And the bum comes out. And suddenly we're back in sexualised Tinkerbell-land.

Oddly, Dahl who supposed to be a little old school created in Matilda an amazing role model for girls. And we, I think, translated that faithfully onto stage. So I'm proud. Still.

I'm very happy. But I was before too. It's a slightly different kind of happy because it involves a house or two and a pool ... things to which I never really aspired and certainly didn't expect. However, in the 10 years that I've gone from having barely a pot to piss in to having une piscine (that shit's why I get the big bucks) I have also acquired two children which didn't cost me anything. So I suppose the nature of my happiness would have changed anyway.

I deal with a lot more stress and many people rely on me now. However I'm built pretty well for stress so I mostly feel perfectly cope-ious.

I always believed – and perhaps because of what happened in my career now have empirical data – that happiness is more to do with how you're wired than how you're treated when you were wee; than the stuff you get. Total cliche. But like all good cliches, true and French.

Of course I don't hate Christians. In fact, I love many individual Christians. If any of my songs seem personally vitriolic, I'd need to know which lyrics because I'm generally at pains to ensure the target is the damaging belief not the personal who holds it. I know that sounds like the ridiculous distinction between "the sinner and the sin" trotted out by homophobic Christians!

I understand that it would feel personally offensive to have your beliefs laughed at but my belief is that faith – the idea of faith – is on the whole damaging. As a result it is the target of my satire. However, in my life, I am a humanist which means my main concern is neither the absence of belief nor a particular belief system should be treated differently in the eyes of the law, so long as the belief system doesn't harm others. I know most Christians in this country are liberal and loving, but that's because most humans are. And too often the doctrine of Christianity is used to justify the not-liberal and loving bits.

I could go on about this forever obviously. But I hope you believe me that I genuinely don't hate anybody.

He seems a hell of a lot better and I have no doubt he has a good heart. He suffers slightly from a belief that Jesus was magic.

We've finished the first workshop on Saturday in London. It's looking exciting, but it's so hard to know how good it's going to be. I'm incredibly impatient to see it on its feet. I'm glad you like Seeing You. I love playing it and people seem to react really strongly to it. I hasten to add, not all the songs are so emotional! There's heaps of comedy and a predictable tendency towards too many lyrics : )

No. Our animal world is pure animal ie. they won't wear clothes or use tools. Andrew is simply the Freddie Mercury of cane toads. Actually, that has implications. Maybe the Pavarotti. Or the Celine Dion. Or the Atticus Fetch.

No I haven't retired.

It's a weird thing, I'm still known as a comedian and yet in 20 years of working in the arts, I've done a total of five years of comedy. I absolutely love performing and get a particular kick out of comedy, so I definitely intend to do more. Trouble is, great opportunities keep coming up and it's easy to keep pushing my own stuff down the list. Good problem to have but a problem nonetheless.

I like the idea of a song about my (or your) rotting corpse. I'll put it on the list.

I've written a song for Groundhog Day about the inevitability of death that would be perfect. It wont' be in the public domain for 18 months. Can you hold on?

I am related to her, but I'm also related to bark.

(I just typed Bach – signed Nancy)

Vonnegut (pathologically laid-back genius); Joan of Arc (delusional uber-leader); Voltaire (if I can time-travel I can be a polglot, surely?); and my great-grandchildren. This goes in both directions, ya?

Mark Twain should be on the top of that list.

I'd love to but I'm one of the few who actually adore the existing one.

Heave ho.

Okay some short answers. I love most of all playing the songs I get to rock out on – getting laughs is a huge buzz but it diminishes the more you do the joke, whereas playing music is always a joy. So Dark Side and Cheese never get old for me, especially when I'm playing with amazing musos as I was on Thursday night.

I only dread complicated songs when I haven't done enough gigs.

Yes the discovery of the ginger anagram was a strange eureka moment.

So yes I will write a serious album one day, one day, one day. Tomorrow and tomorrow.

Regarding worrying audience reactions: having a tense audience that you know you are about to relieve (guffaw) is the best feeling a comedian can have.

I tell them to ignore me regardless of what I do. And then to dance when I tell them to dance. I also tell them that the more they throw themselves into the more fun they'll have and if they don't dance, they'll look like fucking tools. Not a bad rule for life that.

It makes us cry because many or maybe all of us carry around (perhaps subconsciously) a sense that grown-up us has let child us down.

It was the first song I wrote for Matilda because I was trying to find my way into the piece ... to find a tone that would inform the whole. I had a young daughter and Sarah was six months pregnant when I started writing. One of the most visceral experiences of having your own kids is a sort of heartbreaking innocence they display. Which in turn reminds you that you were once that naive and that memory kind of hurts, because now you are all scarred up and cynical (even if you are a romantic like me). Perhaps the song manages to capture a bit of the romance and a bit of the scar. Or something. Plus they are on swings. What's not to cry at?

There was no moment of realisation but I suppose the idea that it was possible came to me in my teens. But unlike kids that you see on American idol who seem to always to have the audacity to have dreamed of being a massive star from the age of five, I never thought beyond the dream of getting paid to sit at a piano and play songs in a bar. I just wasn't brought up to think that someone like me could create on a global level. My aspirations grew bigger very gradually and were always pegged to what I had already done. I often talk about the danger of long term goals and big dreams. And the reason is that I've been very well served by focusing on working hard at short term goals without regard for audience eyes or potential financial gain. Easy for me to say now of course, as I have big audiences and make a living.

Freo, of course.

Obviously writing songs for someone else's story is easier in that you don't have to come up with an idea out of nowhere. Having said that, it's a greater puzzle to try and work out what a character can sing that allows us to have an insight into the character and into ourselves. You have an obligation not only to serve the story and the character development but also to say something broader about the way the world is or the human condition. Whereas with my own songs, my primary objective is satire and laughter so you're less restricted . But sometimes the best inspiration comes from strong parameters. At least you're never staring at a totally blank page when you're working on a theatre piece.

Hi this is Tim typing through the hand of my new friend Nancy. I mention this because my tone might seem weird (I write differently from how I talk). And Nancy can't spel.

Hello all! Tim is here, but we're running a bit late - he will start answering questions in five minutes. Thank you for your patience!