Charlie Pickering hosts The Weekly, a satirical news show on the ABC. I chatted with him on Wednesday.
Fitz: Thanks for your time, Charlie. As a sometime biographer, I love seminal moments in a life. Was there one which sent you down the path of comedy?
CP: Yes. I was about 10, at St Leonards College Primary School in Brighton, and my teacher said: “Charlie, you’ve just got to behave yourself. Look, you’re funny, but …”
“Really? You think I’m funny?”
“Yes, you’re very Monty Python …”
I didn’t know what that meant, so Mum got me the Life of Brian on video, and the rest is history. I had no idea that was an option, there was a thing that existed in the world that you could be that funny.
Fitz: Which brings us to the seminal moment I know of. A bit over a decade later, with a law degree under your belt, you complete your first week’s work at the reputable if snooty legal firm of Blake, Dawson, Waldron and …
Charlie Pickering.
CP: And while I started the week aspiring to one day be in the corner office, and turned up every day early and went home every day late, I also spent a lot of time looking at the blokes – and they were all blokes – who had those corner offices. They were always there earlier than me, and always left later, and they were all depressed. And by late Friday afternoon I realised that if I stayed, I’d blink, and 20 years would have gone by, and I’d still be there …
Fitz: That sounds like the scene in Good Will Hunting when Ben Affleck says to his extremely talented best friend, Matt Damon, something like, “You have to leave here because I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and I’ll be 50, and I’ll hate you if you are still here.” Did that line resonate with you?
How Charlie Pickering would sell Peter Dutton
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30.03.2024
Charlie Pickering hosts The Weekly, a satirical news show on the ABC. I chatted with him on Wednesday.
Fitz: Thanks for your time, Charlie. As a sometime biographer, I love seminal moments in a life. Was there one which sent you down the path of comedy?
CP: Yes. I was about 10, at St Leonards College Primary School in Brighton, and my teacher said: “Charlie, you’ve just got to behave yourself. Look, you’re funny, but........
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