Pictures: Michelle Hyslop, David St George.
Chris Parker and Tom Sainsbury knew they were destined to be friends the first time they ran into each other. How? They were both wearing the same shoes.
“Asics basketball sneakers – ugly, white, with a gold trim,” recalls Tom.
“High school athletics shoes that would’ve been four years out of season,” adds Chris.
Since that chance meeting over a decade ago, they’ve worked on plenty of things together. There’ve been web series, plays and dance shows. And, of course, their hit theatre show Camping, which returns this month to Auckland’s Q Theatre in a refreshed, renewed and revitalised form.
“I was a Fanbury [Sainsbury fan] before all these middle-aged women came in and ushered me out,” boasts Chris, 34. “I’ve been a Fanbury since day one. There had been lots of titters and whispers about how this guy was a genius.”
He saw an early show where Tom played a version of himself in a love triangle with a yeti and a leprechaun, and he realised that they both saw the world “with the same eyes”.
Turns out the feeling was mutual. “I knew there was something glowing about this dude,” says Tom, 42.
In the decade since that meeting, their stars have risen into the stratosphere. Chris has had sellout shows all across the country and won Celebrity Treasure Island, while Tom rode Snapchat filters and his specifically Kiwi brand of humour to ubiquity. There’s barely a local comedy on screen that doesn’t have at least one of them in it.
“Sometimes our lives and our jobs take us apart, and there have been months where we haven’t seen each other,” says Tom. “But we always end up coming together.”
Usually, it’s to work, he adds. “The first hour is honestly just us catching up and gossiping, then it’s like, ‘Might as well do some work.’ Then we do half an hour of work and end up calling it a day!”
Their real-life banter is not dissimilar to their chemistry on stage. They pick up on each other’s jokes quickly, riffing on each other. There’s no straight man – in any sense of the word – in the years-old Parker-Sainsbury friendship.
The first iteration of their play Camping came before either of the pair considered themselves comedians, back in 2016. It was the sell-out hit of that year’s comedy festival and set the tone for what they would later do – unashamedly gay, undeniably Kiwi.
Chris suggested both Kura Forrester (“I was obsessed with her”) and Brynley Stent (“She’s the best”) to round out the cast, and all of a sudden, they had a show.
“We just wanted to make something that was inspired by New Zealand’s camp sensibility,” Chris says. “We also thought we’d sell heaps of tickets, but underneath that cynical outlook, there was a genuine curiosity and interest as to why Kiwi audiences are comfortable in that particular genre of comedy.”
What might surprise you is their respective personas in the rehearsal room. Tom calls Chris “incredibly playful”, whereas Chris calls Tom “a drillmaster”.
He explains, “Tom will be like, ‘We need to run this five more times.’ He’ll get us across the line. He always knows what’s best for us. It sounds like he’s a maniac, but it’s very funny when he does it.”
Tom agrees, “It’s the weird thing about working so hard to do something so ridiculous. The play is absolutely bonkers and ridiculous, but it has to be so good at being ridiculous and bonkers.”
If Camping is anything, it’s bonkers and ridiculous. The show includes a cocktail competition, a talent quest featuring a semaphore dance routine (performed by Chris) and bird calling (from Tom). You also have to see the homage to Princess Diana to believe it.
“It’s sort of like 10-year-old me who is putting shows on in the garage and I can see that 10-year-old in Tom as well,” says Chris. “Ideally, we just want to be silly and gossip, but we know we should work.
“We write these things thinking they’re funny, then we get into the logistics and let go of the humour because we believe in the given circumstances of this actual nightmare we’ve created for ourselves. Then Tom will be in the middle of the run and it’ll just click for him again. He’ll realise what we’ve created and he just won’t stop laughing. It’s such a joy.”
So what does their actual friendship look like when they’re not working together? The question befuddles them quite a bit.
“It’s interesting because we both feel so consumed by our jobs that the time we have, we devote to our non-work-related relationships – my husband and Tom’s boyfriend,” says Chris. “Our own way of hanging out is by making stuff together. The dream situation is we’ve got heaps of projects together all the time.”
They’re blessed with having a similar outlook on how the industry works – there are no Disney-style daydreams.
“We understand something will bring us back together if we want to do it, but there are so many other expectations that you have to fulfil,” explains Chris. “We can’t just commit full-time to Parker and Sainsbury, and just make our own work for the rest of our lives. We’d be broke!”
Their friendship isn’t just based on a genuine love for each other, but for each other’s work.
Chris is obsessed with one of Tom’s self-described “least popular characters”, Satty Faction, a drag queen always complaining about a gig the night before, while Tom recalls a particularly memorable gag of Chris’ about how difficult it is to move a clothes horse. “It’s such a stupid idea, but in Chris’ hands, it’s genius.”
Favourite bits, sure, but what’s their favourite thing about the other person?
“Legs,” replies Chris.
“Skin,” Tom fires back. “His beautiful skin.”
Seriously, though?
“Chris’ ability to understand human behaviour is just unparalleled,” says Tom. “He makes references to the most random things and I know exactly what he’s talking about, whether it’s a specific kind of person who works in a store or the products sold at Living & Giving.”
“I love Living & Giving,” Chris clarifies, then thinks for a bit. “Tom is a true artist. It seems so silly because the stakes are our silly plays and 60-second reels, but he’s written so many books and so many plays, and he’s directed a movie.
“Anything he applies himself to is the best version of that. There’s nobody like him.”
And it all started with two pairs of ugly sneakers.
Camping runs from Thursday to 7 December at Auckland’s Q Theatre. For tickets, visit qtheatre.co.nz.
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