Macleans

This Hour Has 22 Minutes

'We do it on the run in a situation where anything can happen'

BY JOHN DEMONT

THURSDAY, 11:30 A.M. -- precisely 1,950 minutes before This Hour Has 22 Minutes is taped in front of a Halifax audience -- and things are not going well at the script read-through. Co-host Greg Thomey, 37, minus the Gangsta Rap beret and sunglasses he was wearing moments earlier, is trying to figure out how to wring laughs from listless film footage of the Governor General's literary awards ceremony. A tired-looking Rick Mercer, 30, wants to work out the details of the Jimmy Bond Canadian CSIS Superspy skit he has to shoot in a couple of hours. Mary Walsh, 47, who originally hatched the idea for an ensemble comedy series built around the week's news, is shrieking through a parody of Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the family values American radio host. A producer wants to know the whereabouts of Cathy Jones, 44, who still has to shoot her monologue as Joe Crow, the vapid native elder, at a Halifax park. "It's controlled chaos," Mark Farrell, the show's creative producer explains when the meeting breaks up.

Yet, somehow, side-splittingly funny results emerge week in and week out. None of the four Newfoundland-born cast members really thought the show would last beyond the six pilot episodes that aired in 1993. That was before the joint production of Halifax-based Salter Street Films and the CBC won cult status -- and then became a prime-time hit. Every Monday at 8 p.m. (8:30 in Newfoundland), two million Canadians watch the show, which this year snagged three Gemini awards making a total of 14 since its inception. "When we started, Preston Manning's guys were threatening to sue us," notes Mercer, who turned a collection of his 22 Minutes editorial rants or "Streeters" into a best-seller of the same title. "Now, they call up trying to get him on the show."

An appearance on 22 Minutes -- unnerving as it might be -- is just the thing to humanize a politician or public figure: Mercer, in his newsman persona of J. B. Dickson, has lunched at Harvey's with Jean Chretien; Thomey has submitted to celebrity headlocks by a long list of heavy hitters including former U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Colin Powell; Walsh, in character as the outspoken Marg Delahunty or as the outrageous Marg, Princess Warrior, has skewered everyone from Garth Brooks to Mike Harris. "What I like about the show is not so much the edginess of the material, but the edginess of production," says Walsh, "the way we do it on the run, in a situation where anything can happen."

Even though the show now has three full-time writers, the cast members still pen much of their own material. The stars say that makes for long, nerve-racking weeks. "It's crazy," says Jones, who, like Walsh, got her start 20 years ago with the award-winning CODCO comedy troupe. "Every year, you wonder whether you can do it again." Truth is, they are all workaholics who keep busy in the off-season with independent performing careers.

With time, it seems inevitable that someone will burn out from the hectic pace, or leave for other reasons. But nobody is talking about that now. "These are the sweet times," says Thomey, who has also won acclaim as a dramatic actor, "even though you know that someday it has to go poof." Then, he has to excuse himself. There is a show to get out. At 22 Minutes, the clock is always ticking.