#278: Chris Parker - Creating Together

Explicit content warning

03/10/25 • 94 min

Chris Parker is an award winning comedian, actor, writer, show-runner and podcaster.

This past year Chris hosted the New Zealand Comedy Festival Gala, and toured his latest show, Give Me One Good Reason Why I Shouldn’t Throw My Phone Off This Bridge, to full houses throughout Australia and New Zealand. He also made his prime-time Australian TV debut on Thank God You’re Here (where he won the episode) and released the highly anticipated second season of Double Parked. Chris Parker is most commonly known for his funny Instagram and TikTok videos which built him a huge social media audience over the last few years. His legendary win on the hit New Zealand TV show Celebrity Treasure Island made history!

His 2018 New Zealand International Comedy Festival show Camp Binch, was awarded the prestigious Fred Award for Best Show in the Festival and went on to play to 5-star reviews and sell-out crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Fun fact, the felt hat he made during the 2020 nationwide lockdown was acquired by and is on display at The Auckland Museum and Te Papa the National Museum of New Zealand. Kinda dramatic – don’t you agree? Chris is a theatre graduate from the renowned drama school Toi Whakaari O Aotearoa and he has appeared in and written multiple theatre shows across New Zealand, most notably Hudson and Halls Live! Where Chris played one-half of the famous gay cooking duo, David Halls and won best actor at the 2017 Wellington Theatre Awards.

Chris has appeared in feature films such as Baby Done, The Breaker Upperers and Nude Tuesday and has two feature films of his own currently in development. As a comedian and writer Chris is a regular face on New Zealand television appearing on 7 Days, Have You Been Paying Attention NZ, Jono and Ben, Funny Girls, Season 3 of Taskmaster New Zealand and the sitcom Golden Boy. Chris also co-hosts the podcast The Male Gays with fellow comedian Eli Matthewson, which has an upcoming digital video series in production. Chris was listed as The Herald’s top 5 Entertainment Heroes of 2020 and in 2021, was nominated for Television Personality of the Year. In 2022, Chris was the recipient of the inaugural Topp Prize awarded by the New Zealand Comedy Trust for Aotearoa’s most generous and gifted comedian. That same year released the comedy/documentary special Chris Parker: Back To School, about all boy schools in Christchurch. Chris embarked on an Australian and New Zealand national tour of his show Gentle Man to sold-out crowds and 5-star reviews and his debut novel Here for a Good Time was released through Allen & Unwin.

In 2023, Chris toured his new show, Lots of Love, Chris Parker, to sold-out audiences in Australia and New Zealand. Chris’s new comedy series, Double Parked, premiered in June and was created and written with Alice Snedden. He was the show runner and writer for the narrative comedy series Double Parked and is currently touring his live stand up (Stop Being So Dramatic) shows across New Zealand and Australia.

Stop Being So Dramatic are four words the self-proclaimed People’s Princess of Aotearoa Chris Parker has heard his whole life. Now those words also happen to be the name of his show touring Australia and New Zealand in 2025. At the culturally relevant age of 34, Chris is ready to address the drama queen allegations head-on. Stop Being So Dramatic promises to be an hour of high-intensity, feverishly paced and dizzyingly expressive comedy, it’s a one-man variety spectacle, chill, stand-up hour of laughs. That doesn’t sound dramatic at all – does it? Chris admits, there is some merit to the accusations, such as crying in every speech he’s ever delivered publicly, and there may have been a situation this year where he slept on his neck weirdly resulting in a neck brace. Still, Chris is sure he’s just a chilled guy, down to Earth and he’s ready to prove it to you in Stop Being So Dramatic.

We chat about his evolving voice, performing on a broken foot (multiple times), being an improv king and his 10 hour improv day, being the felting guy, his upcoming tour, being a show runner and leadership, thriving on celebrity treasure island plus plenty more!

Check Chris out on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisparker11 Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chrisparkernz Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itschrisparker

Website: https://www.chrisparkercomedy.com Melbourne comedy tickets: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/stop-being-so-dramatic/

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Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook

Chris Parker is an award winning comedian, actor, writer, show-runner and podcaster.

Check Chris out on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisparker11 Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chrisparkernz Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itschrisparker

Website: https://www.chrisparkercomedy.com Melbourne comedy tickets: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/stop-being-so-dramatic/

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Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook

Previous Episode

#277: Amy Gledhill - Just Crack On

Amy Gledhill is an award winning stand up comedian, actor, writer and podcaster.

She is the winner of Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2024 Best Show for Make Me Look Fit On The Poster which is touring in Melbourne for the International comedy festival. She’s also one half of the award-winning double act called the ‘The Delightful Sausage’.

After taking the UK by storm, Amy is nothing short of a comedy powerhouse. Known for her unique blend of insightful observations and confessional anecdotes, she brims with natural warmth and charm. As a multi-award-winning comedian, actor, and writer, Amy is the only artist ever to be nominated for the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award twice in the same year.

Her show ‘The Girl Before The Girl You Marry’ was nominated for Best Live Show- National Comedy Awards 2023 and Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe.

She’s been on The Jonathan Ross Show, The One Show, Pointless Celebrities, The Stand Up Sketch Show, Alma’s Not Normal, Would I lie to You? Sex Education, Hypothetical, Guessable, Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, The Emily Atack Show plus plenty more.

In 2024 she was commissioned by Channel 4 to write a brand new comedy Blap 'Toads', in which she starred as Amber, a bride-to-be who gets cold feet on the morning of her wedding.

Amy is a triple nominated writer, gaining a nomination for three consecutive shows. Beyond writing for live work she was the lead writer on the multi-award nominated Emily Atack Show, The BAFTA winning Class Dismissed and wrote on (and starred in) CBBC’s hit show Big Fat Like demonstrating she is a sharp joke writer whilst also excelling at long form and character work. In her double act The Delightful Sausage they have written to a brief and performed on shows such as Late Night Mash and Stand Up To Cancer which went out live on Channel 4. As well as writing a Radio 2 special The Delightful Sausage; On Staycations and a six part Radio 4 series where they interview children and write sketches around their questions called Big Little Questions.

Amy co-hosts the hit podcast Northern News featured in The Guardian’s Best Podcasts of 2023 so far... Amy has been a guest on James Acaster and Ed Gamble’s Off Menu and Richard Herring’s RHLSTP as well as many more. Amy will also be in the upcoming TV mini-series Run Away sometime next year.

Amy will be in Melbourne for the Melbourne International comedy Festival, so check them out (links below)

We chat about her love of crisps and ballroom dancing, winning awards, The Delightful Sausage and collaboration, her new detective role coming out, balance, toxic positivity, analysing dreams, her upcoming tour in Melbourne + plenty more

Check Amy out on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatamygledhill/

Melbourne shows: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/amy-gledhill/ Website: https://amygledhill.co.uk/ -------------------------------------------

Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook https://www.instagram.com/funnyinfailure/ https://www.facebook.com/funnyinfailure/

and @Michael_Kahan on Insta & Twitter to keep up to date with the latest info. https://www.instagram.com/michael_kahan/ https://twitter.com/Michael_Kahan

Next Episode

#279: Cameron James - Chasing Fun

Cameron James is an award-winning stand-up comedian, musician and storyteller across stages, screens, boomboxes and podcasts.

As seen on the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala, Spicks & Specks, Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, Bump and more. He’s won countless rave reviews for his completely unique “rockstar without a band” comedy style; blending songs as catchy as they are funny, painfully true stories and sharp improvisation.

In 2024, Cam partnered up with Aussie music legend Ben Lee’s indie record label to release his own comedy music, with his single “Medium D*ck” racking up tens of thousands of Spotify streams and over 9 million views on Instagram and YouTube. His most recent one-hour solo shows, Electric Dreams and Mixtape have sold out around the country, earning him the Director’s Choice Award at Sydney Comedy Festival and a nomination for the highly coveted Most Outstanding Show Award at Melbourne International Comedy Festival. He’s won multiple awards including the Raw Comedy National Runner Up in 2012, multiple AWGIE Awards for Best Comedy Writing, and an APA Award for Best Entertainment Podcast. Cam has appeared on TV screens in Bump, Utopia, WTFAQ, Question Everything, At Home Alone Together, and his own comedy special on ABC’s Comedy Next Gen in 2018.

As a sought-after comedy writer, Cam has served multiple seasons on Gruen, Take 5, We Interrupt This Broadcast, At Home Alone Together, Win The Week and Channel Seven’s Celebrity Roasts. As head comedy writer on The Feed he’s won multiple AWG awards. Whilst all of this is impressive, Cameron’s passion is creating his own comedy projects, from his beloved cult sketch series with Becky Lucas, The Becky & Cam Show, to the hit YouTube/Screen Australia series Finding Yeezus and the podcasts Finding Drago and Finding Desperado. The Finding series has amassed an audience of over 1.5 million around the globe, and has been described by The Australian as “tremendously bonkers” and by The AV Club as “brilliantly silly”.

He is currently touring his new show “Broken Records” across Australia. Cameron James has been in just about every kind of band you can imagine from reggae to punk to rock and more making Broken Records the perfect show for the comic to bust his rock n roll and comedy chops on. Get ready to dig into Cam’s record crate of his life, pinballing from hilariously true stories to cutting cultural commentary to full-blown pop songs.

Following a sell-out 2024 season, Melbourne International Comedy Festival Most Outstanding Show nominee, Sydney Comedy Festival Director’s Choice winner and Bad Boy of Musical Comedy* (*self-proclaimed), Cameron James is back with his biggest rock ‘n’ roll show yet. Cam will tour Broken Records across Australia with songs and stories sure to crack audiences up.

We chat about his love of Mike Myers, being stabbed and giving up being in a band, full circle moment with music, embracing his voice and authenticity, new shows coming up, collaborating buddies and thriving together, working with Ben Lee, getting a pilot made, rejection, trying new things plus plenty more!

Check Cam out on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcameronjames Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamcameronjames Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/whoiscameronjames

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4l1R6LtudMUtfjJLUL35Jn?si=yqs8FWvSR-qcH7bXVXAYzQ Comedy tickets: https://www.livenation.com.au/cameron-james-tickets-adp1448822

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Follow @Funny in Failure on Instagram and Facebook https://www.instagram.com/funnyinfailure/ https://www.facebook.com/funnyinfailure/

and @Michael_Kahan on Insta & Twitter to keep up to date with the latest info. https://www.instagram.com/michael_kahan/ https://twitter.com/Michael_Kahan