Comedian Chris Parker is excited to give Auckland audiences some much-needed laughs in an encore of his hit 2016 stage show Camping.
Photo: Supplied/Andi Crown photograph

When it comes to comedy, the stage will always top the screen, says Auckland comedian Chris Parker.

“Being in that room next to people and laughing with them, it’s just so much better than seeing them half asleep on the phone with their hand in a bag of chips.”

For an encore of his amazing 2016 show Camping at Auckland’s Silo Theatre, Parker rocks an “almost medieval” bowl and as much mustache as he can grow.

“I’m going to give you everything. I’m going to cut my hair, I’m going to get a bad mustache and I’m going to be an idiot on stage for almost an hour and a half because I want you to walk away filled with the best feeling I can create.”

Camping runs at Auckland’s Silo Theater from 14 November to 7 December. You can find details here.

Parker wrote the mischievous couples comedy — which is about actors “camping it,” not actually camping — with a comedian Tom Sainsburywhom he describes as a dear friend with a very similar worldview and sense of humor.

“I think everyone has a friend that when one of you passes away, you delete the text message thread and Tom is that friend (for me).”

Parker says he and Sainsbury wrote Camping as a pastiche and a tribute to the campy shows they love like Are you being served?, Kath and Kim and French & Saunders.

‘Camping’, starring Brynley Stent, Tom Sainsbury, Chris Parker and Kura Forrester, runs at Auckland’s Q Theater from November 14 to December 7.
Photo: Delivered

While New Zealanders see themselves as very dry people, our love for these shows, 80s cooking duo Hudson and Halls, The Graham Norton Show and The top twins reveals quite a bit of camp sensibility,” says Parker.

While some lines were cut from the new version of Camping and some new stuff has been added, the play’s examination of monogamy and New Zealand’s cultural prudishness is still relevant eight years later, says Parker.

When Silo Theater first came up with the idea of ​​bringing back the show, he and original cast members Sainsbury, Cure Forrester and Brynley Stent was 100 percent inside.

“For us, there is no better feeling than being able to do this together.”

The Camping actors are excited to give audiences some much-needed escapism at the end of the year, says Parker.

“The world is so tense and I think it’s important that we take our minds off that. We just want to give the audience a really good time and it doesn’t seem like hard work. It just feels like such a gift and such a pleasure to be able to do it.

“When I’m out there doing comedy, I’m just like, ‘This is my one true purpose in life.'”

For Parker, even the political news can deliver laughs through strange human behavior.

“My latest obsession is Speaker Gerry Brownlee loses patience with a chinlock in Parliament. He just says “No, don’t do that”.

“Even though it’s a really tense moment, there’s something underneath it that I think can still be satire and I think it’s important to satirize this sometimes.”

Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee was visibly frustrated when a hook led by Te Pāti Māori interrupted the vote on the Treaty Principles Bill on 14 November 2024.
Photo: RNZ

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