2019 Edinburgh Fringe

Chris Parker aims to destroy single sex education interview

Chris Parker

New Zealand's "beloved sissy" Chris Parker is heading to Edinburgh with his award-winning show Camp Binch. In it he talks about what it was like to grow up gay in his conservative home country.

In your show you mention that you were asked to do a speech at your old high school, what advice did you give the kids?

Well, basically very few people have ever talked about sexuality inside of my old high school so I thought it was be fun to arm myself with a few truth bombs and talk about how I hated single sex education, and I hated rugby and never fit in at school, but its fine now because I live in a different city, am a raging homosexual, and have a lovely boyfriend...

Then I was truly so shocked that I had mentioned the 'G.A.Y word' in my old high school that I blacked out and forgot about the rest of that night.

Chris Parker

Is there a message that the show portrays? If so, what is it?

Well, I feel like I'm going to do a huge disservice to my show by giving that away. But basically it's my one man mission to destroy single sex education... because it didn't work for me. How selfish!

What advice have you learned that you wish you had been told when growing up?

- Change hairdressers, you don't know it yet but your mum's hairdresser is giving you terrible cuts.

- The reason you keep staring at the boys in your class is because you want to kiss them.

- Don't wait till after drama school till you come out. There are hot dancers who you could be having sex with, and you wasting you prime years.

What else are you looking forward to about being in Edinburgh?

I'm looking forward to treating my body like a dumpster. Then moaning about it, impulsively going for a run one morning, and then think "that'll do it" and never exercise again.

Camp Binch won the award for Best New Show at the New Zealand Comedy Awards, how did that feel?

You know how they say a sneeze is a 10th of an orgasm? Well it felt like 10 sneezes ;)

Published: Saturday 27th July 2019

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