A successful comedy career, straddling stage, radio and television; running one of Melbourne’s most influential comedy rooms of the last five years; awards in multiple international festivals including a nomination for one of the world’s most prestigious comedy awards…at twenty eight years of age Charlie Pickering has a lot to be proud of. However Charlie evaluates his work with humility and honest self appraisal. “I only think I’m starting to do good work”. It’s not about accolades or praise for this comedian. For Charlie the greatest reward that comes from a career in comedy is all about the audience. “There is the potential, on occasion, for people to leave the room feeling better than they were when they walked into it…doesn’t matter what shit they had to go through to get there…the babysitter rocked up late, there’s a traffic jam on the way in, they had to spend twenty bucks on a carpark, they spent twenty five bucks on the ticket, they’re arguing about money anyway…all these things that everyone, every minute of every day of their life faces…all of that shit that makes people feel bad, I have the potential, if only for an hour…for people to completely forget about that and have a violent physical reaction to ideas…that makes my job worthwhile…what I really want is to make a whole lot of people feel good…not a lot of jobs where you can do that.”
Charlie Pickering developed a love for making people laugh at an early age. “In grade four I was always in trouble ‘cause I was always cracking jokes…my grade four teacher…he’d given me a detention and he just said “look I think you’re very funny, you’ve gotta just settle down” and I said “you think I’m funny” and he goes “yeah, you’re very Monty Python” and I didn’t know what that meant so I went home and asked my parents and mum hired “The Life of Brian”...so I watched it and then I just decided that if that’s what you can do for a living that’s gotta be the best job in the world.” Charlie identifies this example as being one that shows the heights great comedy can scale. “Life of Brian is a great example ‘cause it’s silly, it also says something about religion and society, human nature of wanting to be part of the herd and be lead…that’s pretty amazing that I could watch something that made me laugh non stop for the whole thing, yet as a kid it made me look at the world in a way I hadn’t looked at it before.”
Along with Monty Python Charlie cites early influences such as Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy “and then it was Hicks, and it was just Hicks, fifty percent of new comedians wish they were Bill Hicks”. Charlie names an eclectic bunch of contemporary influences including musicians such as The Beatles and The White Stripes, along with comedians Stewart Lee and Greg Fleet. “I don’t think I’d have a career if Fleety hadn’t done what he did before me…he made Melbourne Comedy a benchmark in Australia and he made Australian comedy respected in the world.”
Currently preparing his new show “Auto”, Charlie has immersed himself in the work of a new influence, American monologue artist Spalding Gray. Very much a story based show, Charlie describes “Auto” as “kind of about me learning I’m gonna tell jokes for a living”, and draws a comparison between Spalding Gray’s work and his own current direction. “What it is, is storytelling and I think that’s what I wanna do for the next few years.” Charlie is adamant that influences can extend beyond just comedy based ones. “You read some proper fucking artists…like you know Kerouac and you read their books and they talk about how they just came from a Charlie Parker show down in The Village or they’ve been looking at this painting or they’ve been reading this Hemmingway book and they talk about it and it influences what they do, and I can’t see why you can’t do that in comedy.”
Charlie took his 2005 Melbourne Comedy Festival show “Betterman” to the Edinburgh Fringe last year. His first outing in Edinburgh, Charlie won a nomination for the prestigious Perrier Award for Best Newcomer. The nomination led directly to enviable opportunities in the UK for Charlie. “I came out of it with a manager and offers of tours and work and supporting some great comics…it’s all happened a lot quicker than expected.” Charlie, now facing the prospect of spending six months a year in Britain, talks about this development being part of a long term plan for his career. “The whole UK thing is what I set about doing, starting 2003 when I left radio and I moved back to Melbourne and I sat down and said well ‘what do I wanna do’ rather than ‘what do people think I should do’...I looked at Adam Hills and just the fact that he got to spend half his year in the UK and half of it in Australia and I thought that is the best possible way of living your life, you just gig your arse off the whole time…I set about doing that.” Despite the new attention Charlie has gained overseas, he is realistic about the challenges facing him. “I’m still starting out in a new market, regardless of the success that happened in Edinburgh, it’s still a new market and a new bunch of people…it’s hard work for a little while, but it is the land of milk and honey and, as a Standup, you respect it over there and you can make a really good living.”
I caught up with Charlie at Bar Open, the venue for the final season of Stagetime, a comedy room Charlie ran with Michael Chamberlin from late 2000 until its final farewell at the end of 2005. Commenting on the experience Charlie says “it taught me how hard it is to run a comedy room and I now really respect anyone that runs a comedy room well.” Charlie admits that with the first incarnation of Stagetime at “The Derby” there were some negative aspects to the venue as suitable a place for staging a comedy night but asserts that “it doesn’t matter if the show’s in a bucket as long it’s for the comedy and the audience is there for good jokes.” He elaborates on the attitude that drove his and Michael’s vision for what they were trying to create. “We wanted it to be a place run by comedians that treated comedians properly.” Charlie’s respect for his collaborator Michael Chamberlin is readily apparent. “Just the chance to work with Michael is just fucking amazing…there’s always a sense that we’re a team and we always supported each other’s work, and I consider him the best comedic mind in this country…he has always made me wanna be better at what I do.”
Often referring to comedy as an artform Charlie asserts that comedy “just fucking is” art, but qualifies that by saying ”...not all comedy is art…some of it is craft, some it’s work and some of it’s art. It’s about being proud of what you do and saying ‘yes, this is what I do’”. Charlie sums up his attitude to his aims for his own work by saying “before I die I wanna make something that will live beyond my lifetime on this earth.” An experienced performer Charlie also admits to getting nervous “every single time, every single time I get on stage, massively…you need that to give you the right energy on stage, you have to be shitting yourself completely.”
“Auto”, described as “Part book launch, part stand-up show, part writer’s block”, explores Charlie’s journey into comedy featuring “readings from Charlie’s unpublished, and as yet unlived, autobiography”.
“It’s a really organic way that I’m doing this one,” says Charlie, “it’s less deliberate than my last couple of shows which were kind of really structured like I was as much writing to a structure whereas this one I’m kind of letting the structure figure itself out based on the stories.” The writing process has changed for each show Charlie has written, from 2003’s award winning “Boiling Point” written with collaborator Michael Chamberlin. “By sheer necessity we’d each go off and write half the show each and try and smash it together and then I’d read his stuff and go ‘fuck, my stuff’s shit’ and he’d read mine and go ‘fuck, my stuff’s shit’ so we’d rewrite our own stuff and each other’s stuff.” Currently suffering from mild, temporary longsightedness as a result of spending too many hours in front of a computer screen, Charlie says his new show is “about hard boiled writing, I’m writing it like a book because it’s about writing a book…and also this one’s been a collaboration with the amazing Alan Brough.” Alan Brough is directing Charlie in this show and this marks the first time in his comedy career that Charlie has entered into this kind of creative relationship, a relationship he is relishing. “I love it…I probably should’ve done it earlier…it took actually a moderate amount of success for me to then realise that I wanted to be more professional about the way I do this, less self indulgent.” He has huge praise for Alan and shows a deep regard for the collaborative union they have developed. “You gotta get the right director, if you don’t have an amazing relationship that you are willing to try whatever they say and not be embarrassed for being a dick in front of them, alone in a room with one other person, trying to do comedy and trying to…not feel like a spas regardless of how spas you’re actually being…that is difficult…it’s hard to find that, but that said, if you can push through…you create things that you wouldn’t be capable of alone…more people should do that.”
Asked if he is a romantic Charlie says “I have an entirely positive view of the world and I have an almost foolish notion that good will prevail and that you can live your dreams…I maintain that I’m yet to be given a good reason why you should ever give up on your dreams.” Citing an international survey which found the common age of 34 as the age when people give up trying to push through boundaries and just decide to accept their lot Charlie says “fuck that, I never want to be 34…I hope until the day I die I’m a fucking child that believes that I can achieve anything.”
You can catch Charlie Pickering’s new show Auto during 2006 Melbourne International Comedy Festival