JACK Charles, “a man driven”, turns 70 in September, but you feel as if you’re talking to a man half his age.

He’s been a junkie and a con who, in the doco “Bastardy”, relished telling how he had been “comfortable in Kew”, living off the proceeds of theft in what were once his father’s ancestral lands.

He is out of his addiction and proud of it, telling “CityNews”, “I’m the last featherfoot lawman of Collingwood and Fitzroy, I’ve jumped off the methadone, finished with bastardry and now I’m taking myself seriously.”

You can bet that when Charles appears at The Playhouse in his one-man show “Jack Charles V the Crown” he’ll tell us all about it.

He’s thrilled that his young friend, the artist E.LK., who entered a portrait of him in the Archibald this year, is bringing his mum to the show.

That kind of thing gives extra zest to his performance, he tells me in the magnificent voice he swears is “a gift from the great big wedge-tailed eagle of Melbourne.”

Charles devised the script with playwright John Romeril and director Rachel Maza sitting around a kitchen table.

To him, it’s a “pretty loose play” and he’s in his element on stage chatting about his life, “especially if I know there are black fellows in the audience, there are certain things I can say that will have them rolling in the aisles”.

But he admits that Maza is no pushover as a director and he is particularly respectful because she is the daughter of his very old friend and fellow Black Theatre pioneer, the late Bob Maza.

Born of Bunnerong and Wiradjuri heritage, Charles knows many parts of Australia. His dad came from Leeton and his mum lived in Griffith, where she was charged with murder in the 1950s, later cleared. He’s going to write about that.

Though one of Melbourne’s most famous sons, he’s not as popular as you’d think.

“I have to keep pushing the bar so I’ll eventually be taken seriously in Aboriginal Melbourne,” he tells me.

Respect matters to Charles. With lineage traced to Tasmania’s Truganini and the family made famous in “The Sapphires”, he was furious when he found last year that the Australia Council insisted he must prove his Aboriginality to get a grant.

“Me? I’m the last surviving Black Theatre pioneer… I founded the Nindethana Theatre Company in Melbourne… I’m black!” Charles saw red, consulted the Fitzroy Legal Service, and got a famous local QC.

In the interim, he pulled out of the Sydney Theatre Company’s “The Secret River” (“Cate Blanchett understood” he says) announcing, “my mental capacity had been mucked up”.

He chuckles as he tells me that on June 28, after consulting 1700 people, the Australia Council announced a change in policy.

It’s the sweetest victory.

Ilbijerri Theatre Company’s “Jack Charles V The Crown,” (Victoria’s Centenary gift to “Collected Works: Australia”) July 17-19, bookings to 6275 2700 or canberratheatrecentre.com.au

Free screening of “Bastardy” at Canberra Museum and Gallery, 3.30pm, July 13.