In 2016, four New Zealand comedians on the cusp of collective and individual acclaim met in a rehearsal room to pull together a raunchy new comedy.
The show was Camping, about two couples at diametrically different points of their respective relationships. Chris Parker and Brynley Stent played newlyweds and Kura Forrester and Tom Sainsbury a jaded middle-aged couple “joking” about the end of their marriage even though it wasn’t over. Yet.
They had double-booked a romantic getaway at a Kiwi bach in the middle of nowhere and decided to all stay put. Cue cocktails, catfights and repressed desires bubbling to the surface - along with requests for the sell-out show to return.
Now Parker, Stent, Forrester and Sainsbury are bringing back a “refreshed, renewed and revitalised” 2024 version for Auckland’s Silo Theatre. Here, they tell why they made Camping in the first place, why they’re doing it again and how The Rocky Horror Picture Show played a role.
Why did you make Camping:
Chris Parker: It was 2016 and I had just done Hudson & Halls for Silo. I was really obsessed with campness and New Zealand, and how much we kind of love it, even though we consider ourselves to be kind of conservative yet love the Topp Twins and Hudson & Halls themselves. I really wanted to do something in that style. So Tom and I wrote Camping because we wanted to do something for the ComedyFest but wanted to do something as a group rather than on our own. Then it just became a fun, indulgent collaboration.
Why are you bringing it back eight years later?
CP: Well, the US election… Sorry, no. It’s just that this show has never gone cold for us so when Silo Theatre approached us to ask if we wanted to do it again, we all jumped at the chance because we loved doing it.
Kura Forrester: It was the first time we’d ever worked together and now like we’re “ye olde” so it was kind of a meta theatre moment.
Tom Sainsbury: These three delight me, they’re so good at ridiculous, hilarious observational characters.
How many shows have you done together now?
Brynley Stent: Maybe not all together, but I’m going to say eight. Our paths cross all the time.
Who are the characters?
BS: I play Constance Cummings, who’s a young newly married woman who is scared of many things but, at the same time, knows what she wants. She’s a strange girl.
CP: And I’m her husband, Francis, who’s in this kind of prison of masculinity and traditional values but is so conflicted about everything.
KF: I’m Fleur Bein, wife of Les Bein, who used to be the life of the party, loved being the centre of attention but is down in the dumps, deep in menopause and with a marriage that’s on the rocks. She’s had it with her marriage, she’s had it with life and just wants to be on the couch in a hoodie.
TS: Les treasures his wife, but he’s not really coming to the table with who she really is. He’s on edge all the time.
Why is it giving me Rocky Horror Picture Show vibes?
CP: Because I’m obsessed with The Rocky Horror Picture Show! It was kind of a reference point for us. There’s also a sort of Kath and Kim vibe, too.
TS: Les and Fleur are very much like Kim and Kel.
So, is it about going camping?
CP: There’s no camping in it…
BS: Well, at least not like as in a campground…
CP: It’s more about camping as in “camping it up”. It’s about relationship dynamics, sex, desire and gender. The threat of monogamy.
The threat of monogamy?
TS: I think the concept of monogamy, particularly in New Zealand, goes back to the Victorian era. It harks back to that idea of getting married really young and staying in that relationship no matter what. Divorce rates are high, but I think there’s a lot of guilt and trauma around break-ups because of the added guilt around ideas of what monogamy is.
KF: And politeness as well, sometimes I think we’re too polite.
BS: Like the mask of politeness, the “I’ll do anything for you” Kiwi-isms.
TS: And the concept of romance. These couples are trying to do romantic things, but it’s so corny and cheesy.
CP: I listen to podcasts about how different types of couples deal with conflict. There’s those couples who will have a head-on intense conversion, hit the confrontation head-on and deal with it, and then there are these couples who don’t have the ability to handle that and just cruise with comfort.
I think that’s true for the two couples in this play. They’d rather keep their wants and desires private because they don’t trust that their partners won’t judge them for it.
BS: I think there’s a lot of “boredom” in relationships, which come down to hitting milestones because you’re bored or listless or something, so there’s a checklist you go to when you don’t know how to express yourself or you’re not enjoying your life or have any passion. I’m generalising but there’s a checklist of, “well, the next thing we look forward to is the wedding and the next thing is the new house and the next thing is the kid and the next thing is extending the house.” I think often those things happen because they come from a place of being bored or not knowing what you really want to do next.
You obviously had a lot of fun with this show, so how do you ensure it’s a show for an audience and not just the four of you?
TS: We’re all observational comedians so I think we will be representing people in the audience, and that’s one thing.
CP: All four of us are creators who truly put the audience before themselves. We’ll do anything to get a laugh; we want to laugh more than anything and for us to get a laugh, that’s about hearing the audience laugh.
BS: And we’re not the types to laugh at our own jokes on stage unless we’re truly breaking. There’s no indulging, no fake corpsing…
KF: And there’s no in-jokes, either. If we’re trying to have a joke, it’s with the audience…
CP: And will usually cut it if it doesn’t get a laugh. If we find something funny, but it doesn’t get a laugh we will cut it…
TS: It’s usually my favourites…
So, who will it appeal to?
BS: The girls and the gays!
CP: There’s definitely a kind of coded countenance to it that we’re trying to skewer and satirise.
TS: I think people who are the ages of my and Kura’s character – 50s and 60s – will like it.
KF: If they don’t find it too real!
Camping is on at Q Theatre, Auckland for November 14 - December 7.
