Parker is performing his comedy special Give Me One Good Reason I Shouldn't Throw My Phone Off This Bridge at the ASB Waterfront Theatre on 23 August. Photo: NZ Intl Comedy Festival
Comedian Chris Parker owes a lot to his phone, but he still has the urge to hurl it off the tallest bridge he can find.
It's the subject of Parker's upcoming winter comedy special Give Me One Good Reason I Shouldn't Throw My Phone Off This Bridge, which he'll be performing twice at the ASB Waterfront Theatre in August.
Parker has been in the comedy scene for a long time, but his posts on Instagram - sometimes impressions of his mum or him felting woodland creatures - have catapulted into him into a new era of success. He explains his compilcated relationship with his phone to The Tahi's So'omalo Schwalger.
"I am totally addicted to my phone but I also kind of need it for my work. I'm so grateful I have quite a large audience here in Aotearoa, and I have my Instagram to thank for that ... this show is a bit of a mental push-pull of me wanting to throw my phone off the Harbour Bridge but then also being so grateful for Instagram."
Parker wrote the show earlier this year and has been performing it to crowds all over Australia and New Zealand as part of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival - the upcoming encore performances are part of the festival's winter special.
He says the show has just gotten better and better over time.
"There's a whole lot in there, do you know what, underneath it all, there's this general loneliness and isolation everyone's feeling, and that want and need to connect, we do digitally, that's why I keep going back to my phone, see what my friends are up to. They're all in London, they're all in Melbourne, getting better money," he laughs.
"That's why I keep going back to the phone, it's just me trying to renavigate that relationship so I'm not just constantly scrolling and feeling terrible."
Parker says developing the show and seeing what lands for different audiences is all a part of the process - he'll trial material at smaller gigs to begin with and go from there.
"I'll have a couple of ideas in my notes app and then I'll exercise those ideas in front an audience, who have got a couple of drinks just to sort of soften the vibe, but I'm very rarely like ... writing like that ... there's a lot of storytelling, I write my jokes like, you know when you've got a really funny yarn you tell around the dinner table, that's how I sort of do it.
"You tell it a few times and you're sort of like, actually if I tweak here and I'll draw the suspense out here, I get a better pay off here, I do that sort of thing ... but there's no better inspiration than a pressing deadline."
For a gig in Australia, a crowd will be around 200 people. In New Zealand, it's more like 2000. Parker says audience reactions to jokes can differ, but not for the reasons you might think.
"I think because we live in such a global world, everyone's online, everyone has the same references, everyone has seen people swimming in the Seine, everyone saw Trump, we're across everything. It's more I find attitudes about generations and now that everyone's algorithms are really rabbit holing them down certain areas, it's always interesting what references land for people.
"Maybe there's a little bit about, I perform right around New Zealand, and in more high density metropolitan areas, versus more rural smaller towns, the difference there is quite interesting, it's quite a lot of work to be able to get the same show and have it land in these really specific contexts.
"That's where the pressure stacks up, when you're like, okay, Hawke's Bay, I love them but I've never been, I've never done a show here, how are they gonna eat this up ... but I really try and connect."
But nailing the comedic material isn't enough anymore - you also need a strong social media strategy to make it fly. It's something Parker is adept in.
"The reason I'm doing two shows is because I'm gonna be filming it so I can turn it into little clips. It's the circle of content which is, you create the material, you perform the show, and then you butcher it up into 60-second reels ultimately for Mark Zuckerberg's gain. That's what I'm going to be doing, I'm really excited though, high pressure obviously, I'll be on my A game, I'll be looking fantastic because it'll be living forever on the internet.
"And if you haven't seen it, I honestly think it's one of my funniest shows ... I'm gonna be sad not to get this show all the time again cause I've done it so much now that there's so many jokes packed into it. It's cool to be able to film it, there's bits that I'm excited to release online, but comedy is so much funnier in real life. It's so much funnier than watching it on your phone."
Parker is performing Give Me One Good Reason I Shouldn't Throw My Phone Off This Bridge on 23 August at the ASB Waterfront Theatre, at 6:30pm and again at 8:30pm. Tickets are available via comedyfestival.co.nz.
