The craft of a comedian _{by Madelaine Empson}

Chris Parker is an instantly recognisable face on our stages and screens. The Fred Award-winning comedian is known for his high-energy live performances, viral TikTok and Instagram reels, legendary win on Celebrity Treasure Island, regular appearances on Have You Been Paying Attention? and 7 Days, and the felt hat he made during lockdown that sparked fierce competition between Auckland Museum and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. In the end, Auckland Museum got the hat and Te Papa got a portrait of Chris wearing the hat by Andi Crown, who has taken the promo pics for his new stand-up show Take a Good Hard Look at Me.

“I’m really excited – I love performing for Welly crowds”, Chris says of the launch of the Aotearoa leg of the tour at St James Theatre on the 4^th of September. During our chat, we take a good hard look at the show and the events leading up to it.

I love the poster image (which our interview text-wraps around)! The mirrored aspect together with the colour scheme puts me in mind of dragon’s eggs, shiny beetles, peacocks…

Every year with my posters I try to do something a little bit crafty. I used an actual mirror; you can see smudges on it. I like reminding audiences with the posters that comedy is a physical, real-world experience, so I always like to try and create something that’s not too computer generated. I’ll do the font, but then I’ll try to do some sort of mirror, or last year I painted a big backdrop, or I’ll do a big, elaborate photoshoot. It is such a fun part of putting a show together, trying to make a crafty little poster. It is a moment where I get to exercise my creative free will.

What was the inspiration behind Take a Good Hard Look at Me?

The show this year is basically all set over one day. It’s set on the 10^th of February 2026. It is a deep examination of my day-to-day life. Comedians are always trying to be as personal as possible, and this is the most personal that I could be: show people what I get up to in a day. The show is like you’re taking a good hard look at how I live my life. I’m trying to tap into: everything feels so big and global tensions are so high, you can’t even fathom what’s going on – and yet we often live such a boring day-to-day life. I love that contrast. That’s what the show is about: the big and the mundane at the same time.

Is a day in your life as glamorous as showbiz appears to be from the outside looking in?

It is very unglamorous [laughs]. You’re just backstage touring on your own. I’ve just spent two months on my own performing in Australia – Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney, Perth – and it’s a really crazy experience to be alone in a hotel, alone backstage, then boom, you’re in front of 300 people.

You started the tour in Australia?

Yes, I work the material up. The poor Adelaide audience, they get absolute slop every year [laughs]. By the time I’m performing it in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, it’s so in my body. I know every nook and cranny of that show.

How did you choose the 10^th of February? Was it a significant day, or is the point that it was insignificant?

I just went for the most boring day I could find. I didn’t want it to be about a crazy event or an extraordinary day. Can I make what is truly mundane, what is almost nothing, something? I feel like that’s the real craft of a comedian: turning nothing into something. I feel like I’ve pulled it off this year. It’s been a really fun show to do.

When did you first realise you could make people laugh, and what did that feel like?

I guess I was always quite funny in the family. We’ve got a big family of four siblings and Mum and Dad, so it would be six of us around the dinner table and I felt like I would have the table laughing at those points. At high school I really found my power. The high school theatre sports competition. We’d perform at assembly in front of 2,000 teenage boys (who were hungry), which is the hardest audience you’ll ever have to perform for. So I feel like I cut my teeth on those really gruelling, pre-assembly performances. I feel indestructible now.

From there, what were your first comedy gigs like and what’s changed for you since?

When you start out, you’re way more experimental than you are once you establish yourself. You’re like, ‘What could comedy be?’ You have no idea what it is, but you feel confident to stretch it and be daring. Not that I’m not daring now, but you just don’t know, so you’re doing comedy from that point of unknowingness. Now, I’m on stage maybe 150 days a year in front of an audience. I know what gets them going. It almost feels like science now, whereas it used to feel like painting with a blindfold.

Love the analogy. From stage to screen and everything in between, what keeps you in the comedy game?

First of all, I think it’s a mindset. Being a comedian is a lifestyle now; it’s how you think and see the world, so it’s hard to get out of it because you’re always looking for, ‘What’s funny about this experience?’ And what keeps me here is that I really have no other skillset! I’ve done this from the beginning and I’m kind of stuck in it, so I’ve made peace with the fact that this is it now. I’ll get as good as I can at it [chuckles].

What do you hope Welly audiences get out of taking a Good Hard Look at you?

I know that this is a really, really funny hour. I’ve done it so many times now, it’s maybe one of the funniest hours I’ve written. And I know that the world at the moment feels like a deeply unfunny place. Sometimes it feels weird to be at a point where you can escape and laugh at stuff that feels like it’s part of the world we’re living in. For this show, I tried to marry these things. I’m the same: I can see what’s going on in the world, I’m experiencing it with the audience. But I’m also trying to find the relief, the joy, the catharsis through it. I hope that people will experience a sense of unity with me and with the audience, and that we are also all going through this together, and that we are going to be okay, and that it is a real ride [laughs].