Charlie Pickering
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Charlie Pickering

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When I call for our interview, I get a side of Pickering the public doesn’t see often. Still razor-sharp, witty and genuinely warm, the normally slick and composed comedian and TV personality is a little flustered.

“I had planned to be at the airport by now, chatting to you. But I’m in the heaviest traffic on the freeway, my plane leaves in half an hour for a show in Tasmania tonight, and I’m pretty sure I’ll struggle to make the show if I miss this plane. So, if I swear and it’s not in an entertaining or humorous fashion, it’s nothing to do with you.”

Known primarily for his work on Channel 10’s The Project and now his ABC news satire show The Weekly, Pickering has let comedy take a backseat over the past few years.

“It’s really hard to do both properly. Well, no. I think you can do both properly, but not be a good member of your family,” he says, correcting himself. “If I spent all day in the office doing my job job, then went out at night to do stand-up, then spent all weekend writing stand-up, then there’d be no space for a life or for relationships. And then also, what the fuck would I do stand-up about, too? If you’re not living a life, you’ve got nothing to talk about.”

He’s back at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year with his first solo show since 2012 – an event he used to appear on the bill for year in, year out – with How To Tame A Squirrel,  a show inspired by the woman who told him that he should, in fact, attempt to domesticate one.

“Part of why I want to talk about it is that the people who think you can do something so ludicrous is, you know, one of the absurd corners of the greatest time-wasting device that the world has ever known,” he says.

After a few years away from the Australian comedy scene, and with the new challenge of his own TV show under his belt, the 38 year-old’s approach to stand-up has relaxed – less tightly wound than the scripts he now works with every day.

“In previous shows I’ve been more anchored down in my material, but in this one I’m keen to improvise a lot more and see where the shows go,” reflects Pickering. “There’s a rough framework, but whenever I talk I have other ideas come into my head that I feel like bringing up, and that seems to be working out pretty well for me. I kind of feel like if people want to see me do some highly scripted work, The Weekly is a good description of that, so this is a good chance to have a bit of loose fun.”

Having moved on from The Project, Pickering is now afforded more creative freedom to pursue his ideas into new areas.

“At The Project I was running the risk of being taken seriously, and I think now people know they should absolutely not be taking me seriously, and that makes me feel a lot more comfortable.

“While I was doing The Project, I think everyone was quite surprised when they saw me doing stand-up. It’s a very different job. That light entertainment news stuff is pretty sanitised, and my stand-up never has been. The Weekly is a lot more like my voice, so I think people are used to seeing me do lots of jokes in a row rather than just doing the news and how cyber-bullying is making life hard for our kids, and how obesity is a problem – you know, all those stories that are on repeat five nights a week.

“I do think it all comes down to the idea that we’re actually trying to find the truth in every story. Quite often, the coverage of stories gets so carried away [that] it misses the truth of the situation, so yeah – all we try to do is just get to what we reckon is the reality, and it’s not always easy but it’s a good compass to sail by.”

By Matilda Edwards