Mary Walsh, of This Hour Has 22 Minutes fame, sat down with her friend Lulu Keating in a couple of comfortable chairs on the stage at the Palace Grand Theatre in Dawson City on May 21. She began with a speech guaranteed to endear herself to her local audience:
"Wow, I thought I'd been here before,’ she said,” but then when I got here, I knew if I hadn't been. I wouldn't have forgotten. It's so amazing. And you can see, it's like, I don't know what it is, but it's such a different place, isn't it, and you can see why you want to live here. I'm going to try to get a residency here next year.”
Walsh hails from Newfoundland and Keating is originally from Nova Scotia but they agreed that their origins should most properly be called the Atlantic Provinces rather than the Maritimes.
Walsh studied theatre in Toronto at Ryerson University but dropped out to work with the CODCO comedy troupe on a series of stage shows, which eventually evolved into a sketch comedy series, which ran from 1988 to 1993 on CBC television. This coincided with her struggle with alcohol, which she has now abstained from for over 30 years.
Giving it up was essential to her career, she said, “It was a damn good thing because I could have never done This Hour Has 22 Minutes if I'd been drinking."
The conversation was punctuated by video clips of the various television shows that Walsh has performed in, and written for during her career. These included CODCO, her first big hit and then her years with the current affairs satire program This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
As part of that show she created her famous characters, Marg Delahunty and Marg, Princess Warrior, both of which specialized in ambush interviews with politicians. The Princess was revived in a National Canadian Film Day ad which ran to comment on President Trump’s Trade War in the Spring of 2025.
This is one of the few times that she's ever actually chosen to do a commercial type of advertising, though she has done some public service announcements for other worthy causes. She recalled that the CODCO troop was once asked to do a commercial for Coke (“the soft drink not the other stuff”) but they turned it down.
The audience, which clapped and laughed regularly, was particularly inspired by a lengthy political rant about things Trumpian, comparing its themes to the Conservative Party of Canada.
“What's going on in America is like so crazy. We have it too. We've got the disease with PP; I call him that, or the Convoy Coffee Boy,”
She compared Pierre Poilievre to a Dr, Seuss book full of rhymes and catchy phrases: Axe the Tax, Spike the Hike and so on.
“Why not just Bikini Wax the Tax or go for a hike on a bike if you like on a turnpike?”
She referred to President Trump as the Mango Mussolini, an Orange (s)Hitler or “Donny Dementia”.
“I think he already knows what an arsehole he is, but he just doesn’t care.”
Politicians that she has enjoyed spoofing and ambushing included Stephen Harper (Who she kissed as part of a televised Marg, Princess Warrior bit in 2004) and especially Jean Chrétien, who she could always count on to be funny.
She showed a clip from Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, a show about a family business which specialized in births, weddings and funeral home services. The family was revived for A Christmas Fury in 2017. She also appeared as a guest on Republic of Doyle, Hudson and Rex, Murdoch Mysteries and numerous other shows, and created the CBC program Mary Walsh: Open Book, a CBC talk show about books and literature.
Recently she has appeared in The Missus Downstairs, which is about to have its fourth season. There was a short set of clips from this show, which broadcasts on a Bell station Dawson doesn’t receive, She promised to send a link to anyone who left her an email address.
She has appeared in more than 30 films and appeared in or written for some four dozen other television shows.
After a Q&A session where she took on some questions from the audience, she ended the evening with the pledge to return at some later date. She has written a couple of books, so she could apply for a Berton House residency.
Dan Davidson taught in Beaver Creek, Faro, and Dawson from 1976-2008. Since 1977 he has been writing reviews, news and commentary for the Whitehorse Star and What’s Up Yukon, and recently for the late Yukon Star. In 1989 he helped to found the Klondike Sun, which he edited for 31 years, and remains on its board of directors.
