Dean Parker

Dean Parker is a New Zealand screenwriter, playwright, journalist and political commentator based in Auckland.

Parker has worked as a writer for much of his life and been prominent in his union, the NZ Writer's Guild. His plays include Midnight in Moscow (which The Press reviewer Alan Scott called "entertaining and thought-provoking" and "one of his best to date"), 2005's Iraq-set Baghdad, Baby, and an adaptation of Nicky Hager's expose The Hollow Men. Amongst his screenwork, he has won awards in New Zealand for tele-play Share the Dream (starring Joel Tobeck), and co-writing successful big-screen comedy Came a Hot Friday. The 1985 film centered on two conmen in small town New Zealand, and was adapted from the novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson.

Parker's theatrical CV includes The Feds, Two Fingers From Frank Zappa, and adaptations of Great Expectations, and The Trial. He has also written many radio plays, among them Joe Stalin Knew My Father and Engels F: A History of the Ould Sod.

Arguably his best-known television work is Welsh-Kiwi rugby tale Old Scores, which Parker co-wrote with ex All Black triallist and occasional soccer player Greg McGee. The two also co-created 80s trucking series Roche, whose cast included John Bach and Andy Anderson, and goldmining drama Gold, a co-production between New Zealand and Canada. Parker has also worked on episodes of police drama Mortimer's Patch, Betty's Bunch, and documentary Just Slightly, A People Apart: The Irish in NZ.

In 1990 Parker co-directed Shattered Dreams, a documentary on the years leading up to the '51 Waterfront strike.

Parker was born in Napier, Hawke's Bay. By 1969 he was living in London, England. While of mainly Irish ancestry, he knew little of the Irish struggle until "troubles" began that year in Northern Ireland. Parker joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign, led by the International Socialists (now known as the Socialist Workers Party), and immersed himself in literature on the Irish struggle. He continued his involvement with the IS into the early '70s', attending branch meetings in West London, with his old Napier friend, Blair Peach. Peach was later killed while participating in a 1979 anti-National Front rally.

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