Comedy Festival 2018: Charlie Pickering ponders the big issues in 59 Consecutive Minutes ★★★★

CHARLIE Pickering’s intelligent, complex, compelling, hour-long comedy routine/philosophy/history lecture, will not only entertain, but should increase your IQ exponentially.

THE baton for intelligent, topical comedy has passed to the always insightful, thinking person’s comedian, Charlie Pickering, now that Wil Anderson is regaling Comedy Festival audiences with tales of his airline travelling woes.

The bearded Pickering may look casual, dressed in T-shirt and jeans, but the topics he explores in his new show, 59 Consecutive Minutes (not to be confused with 60 Minutes), and the measured manner of his thoughtful delivery, are anything but.

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The scope of Pickering’s show is far-reaching as he ponders the big issues. Audiences expecting a gag-filled hour will, rather, be exposed to a clothesline of topical domestic and international issues torn from the front pages of our newspapers.

Charlie Pickering in 59 Consecutive Minutes.

Pickering’s show is all about the world getting meaner. In this world, commuters casually film racist rants on trains on their mobile phones, Nazi rallies occur in the United States (You didn’t know you could buy Nazi flags from a well-known online retailer?), and our same-sex marriage debate was “hijacked” by talk of Christian bakers baking cakes for gay couples and people doing unspeakable things to their pets.

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Unsurprisingly, Pickering does not shy away from such weighty issues as climate change (in New York recently, he spoke with astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson), he provides an almost intelligible explanation of quantum physics, then glides into a discussion about the #MeToo movement.

This is an intelligent, complex and compelling hour-long routine/philosophy/history lecture. Spend 59 well-chosen minutes with Pickering – your intellect will thank you.

Charlie Pickering, 59 Consecutive Minutes

Greek Centre, Cnr Lonsdale and Russell sts, Melbourne, until April 22.

comedyfestival.com.au

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