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Charlie Pickering.
 Having
woken up at 5am to catch a rickety little plane from Wagga Wagga,
Charlie Pickering was more than eager to divulge anything and
everything that entered his ever churning mind. "It was a twin
propeller plane and you know, I still don't trust them. My only
hard and fast rule is nothing with one engine ‘cause if one
goes, well... if the engine did go I think I'd jump out and
flap my arms, I mean, sure it might not work but it's better
to die trying. 'Charlie Pickering - the man that almost flied'."
It's at this point I mention his minor grammatical fault. "Did I say 'flied'? What the hell was that? That's just shows massive gaps in my education, my parents paid good money for that."
Pickering was originally a "lawyer thingy" after studying at Uni and I suggested that moonlighting may be the way to prevent this knowledge going to waste. "You're the first person who's made it viable. I could be some kind of maverick, motorbike riding judge by night, comedian by day - I go out and just unleash a bit of justice."
So why did he give the law side of things away in the first place? "People would die. I'm easily distracted and being responsible for people's lives is a bit of a bore. I'd rather do something trivial like comedy," Pickering answers.
But don't be mistaken, Pickering doesn't just do comedy, he does 'jazz comedy'. "It's not bound by form," he explains. "There's no music just a lot of jazz attitude. If you come at me with structures I'll say 'Hey, you can chew on your structure sandwich, what I'm bringing is jazz'. You could interpret that as 'You haven't written anything' but that's the thing about jazz, it's not about perfection.
"I might scat during the show, it's my new hobby. Well, my new hobby is talking about how my new hobby is scatting. Adelaide could be the launching pad for doing a gig entirely of scat. There'd be a range of tempo and key changes and then I'd do the first ever jazz scat version of Barbara Streisand's The Way We Were. There have been scientists that say it can't be done, but I'm willing to give it a shot."
Along with his jazz vibe, Pickering also plans to incorporate a bit of Greek Mythology and urban myths as well as modern government and media mythology. But surely this combination of jazz comedy and Greek Mythology has all been done before? "A lot of people look at it and go 'It's comedy by numbers, surely you can't bring anything new to the form' but I can, and that's scat."
Amongst all the nonsense Pickering also admits that he loves his job and the opportunity to make people's lives a bit better for 10minutes. "Every show will have something unique to offer the audience, I just follow the vibe," Pickering chuckles. "This is the silliest interview I think I've ever done."
Cassie Hilditch
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Charlie Pickering will also be silly at Synagogue House, 20 February- 13 March at 7:15pm.
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