Da Tory Code

From their no-doubt hilarious training centre,Second City launched a new bunch of comic hacks into the world yesterday with Da Tory Code, their inaugural comedy writers showcase. With a healthy balance of political debate and general Canadian hosery, the players joked about Osama becoming a Scientologist, used five-pin bowling and Korn to describe electoral reform and sang the praises of the Terry Schiavo diet (too soon?).

But the undoubted highlight of the show was when they brought it on home with a big musical finale set in the House of Commons. And even though Belinda Stronach's song was “Don’t you wish your MP was hot like me” ( man, are we never going to leave Belinda alone?!), it was worth it to see the looks on the faces on the guests of honour, Jack Layton and Olivia Chow, when a female player poked fun at Jack, complete with duct-taped moustache and bike helmet. And bless Olivia’s heart, she even laughed through jokes about how Jack’s ‘stache gets in the way of their, er, Jack and Olivia time.

Just like all comedy shows, some sketches worked, some didn’t. But even if we weren’t sure it was appropriate to laugh at some of the punches they pulled, they sold it as hard as they could.