Canada’s ‘Princess Warrior’ stops by our podcast (minus the sword)

Mary Walsh is so much more than one iconic character, but for countless Canadians she will always be Marg Delahunty, Princess Warrior.

Her sword-wielding alter ego — who ambushed politicians, cornered them with uncomfortable questions, and even kissed one would-be prime minister on the lips — was a favourite on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the long-running sketch show she created.

But Marg is only one small part of her story.

Walsh’s new book — Brassy Bit of Aging Crumpet: A Memoir in Pieces — lays it all out there, from her rocky childhood in Newfoundland to her struggles with alcohol to the dread she often felt while trying to make people laugh.

Walsh is our guest on this week’s episode of Village Media’s Closer Look podcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

And to save myself the indignity of dying in a volunteer liberal dictatorship. I'm volunteering. Go ahead. Embrace me.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

But uh anyway, he's a lousy kisser. No matter what you think of Mr. Harper or his politics, he really is. It's like kissing a fence post.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

It has been a while, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04

This new format changed every time. How was your week? Changed every I don't know. I haven't seen you at all. I know. I really, really missed you.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Said no one ever. Said no one ever. No, I know. Uh it's good to be back, though, in uh new format. Uh you would have gotten emails if uh if you're a subscriber saying that we're going from a uh a daily show to uh once a week Sunday mornings around eight o'clock across the Village Media Network. Uh deeper dives, a little more context, uh bigger stories, maybe bigger guests. Uh and today is certainly no exception. For sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:34

Uh did you get any feedback for the uh the change?

SPEAKER_04 1:37

Uh you know what? We uh the the viewers and listeners uh are so kind. Uh a lot of people uh not liking the fact, believe it or not, uh, that we're going from a daily show to uh to a weekly show. So that was great to see. Uh lovely uh note uh from uh a woman in southern Ontario who said uh she'll be sure to watch us right after church.

SPEAKER_06 2:00

That's nice. That's nice. I did see one comment of a of a listener or viewer who watched it every morning like early, early, 5 a.m. Right. And how they enjoyed the conversations, which is nice. I mean that's nice to hear that. My friend Craig Dawson uh sent me a text when he heard it and said, Going to once a week, that's no good. What am I going to listen to now when I'm in the shower? I don't really understand what that means, but he's not too happy about it. He did he was a loyal listener. Uh I think they do it out of uh obligation that well, I you know, I gotta support the guy like we grew up together. I guess I should uh friends like uh Craig who needs enemies, right? That's right. That's right. But I think you know what, I think you're right. Kicking off Sunday morning was a great way to start Sunday morning by talking to uh Mary Walsh. The one and only. She's uh was the founder of the creator in of Tw This Hour is Twenty Two Minutes. Yes. She's hilarious. Uh she's super smart uh and a great writer. It's not just her comedy show, but this book is excellent. It is, yeah. And it's and it has a dark, there's some dark sides to the dark points of this book. She really talks about some struggles she had growing up, some challenges she had, her struggles with alcoholism, for instance. But also there's some just laugh out loud moments in in the book. It's kind of a it's a collection of essays. Um and uh, you know, she is we all know her as Mark Delahante, the war. Of course, the Princess Warrior, right? On This Hours 22 Minutes, and all the times she would butt into press conferences. We're talking in the you know, the era of like Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, uh Stephen Harper in the early years. And uh, you know, there were times I saw I was just going through YouTube, she courted Stefan Diana at the time, he was the liberal leader. Right, yeah. She made a joke about how the whole whole the whole country is resting on his skinny shoulders. Uh and you know, even just uh confronting Mike Duffy at the height of all his uh scandal, the senator there. Um she was just she was she is hilarious, and uh um she uh this book is is is a great read uh for so many different reasons. And uh we reached out to her and asked if she would join us to come on the podcast and talk about the book, and uh she's found some time, which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

From her iconic work on This Hour has 22 minutes to decades of fearless political satire, acting, writing, and producing. Mary Walsh is a force of nature. She's helped shape the voice of Canadian comedy, sharp, unapologetic, and deeply human. She's the kind of performer who can make you laugh, make you think, and occasionally make politicians very uncomfortable, sometimes all at once. Now she's added another chapter to an already remarkable career with her new book, Brassy Bit of Aging Crumpet, a memoir in pieces. Mary Walsh joins us today. It's uh great to have you here, uh Mary. Welcome to Closer Look.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Thank you so much. Thanks.

SPEAKER_06 4:45

This is a super thrill for me, Mary. I have to tell you a funny personal story to start. Back in, I think it was the late 1990s, I was a young journalist, and I attended a conference in St. John's, and you and I were on the same flight back to Toronto, and we we sat beside each other in the airport, and you were hilarious and gracious and and super kind, and I'm sure that conversation had a big influence on your career as well, too, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Oh, I think it changed it entirely, entirely.

SPEAKER_06 5:09

I can imagine. But it what's interesting is now having read your book and and and knowing what was going on behind the scenes as you were doing such great work. I mean, this was the peak of this hour's 22 minutes when we met, it was a you you were it was a different Mary Walsh going on behind the scenes. It wasn't always easy being you and that had that kind of fame and what you were doing.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

No, no, no, no. And when I look back on it now, uh I feel if I have any sadness about anything, it would be that I clung on there uh with the alcohol as being my friend and being self-pitying and feeling I was the victim. And no matter what happened, it didn't make any difference. It's like the conservatives, no matter or the Republicans, no matter how much they control, they're still whining on about, you know, this, that, and the other thing. They don't have this, and the libs are, you know, you know, doing this. And but I was there with them, like foolishly stuck in some place that I could have, if I had the sense of I had two clicks to call a clue, gotten out of much faster, you know, and uh living life on life's terms, you know, as opposed to trying to impose my terms on everything.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

Exhausted. Mary, the uh the the book is brilliant. Uh, why was now the right time to write it?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Well, you know, I did write another book called a novel, uh, called uh Crying for the Moon, and HarperCollins published it. And it I think it was a Canadian bestseller, but it didn't win any prizes or anything. I was just so happy that I finally did it because it's what I had always wanted to do. But then uh that was it. I never heard hide nor hair of HarperCollins again. Then a couple of years ago, uh Iris called me up and said, you know, we were talking and we were thinking, would you like to do a book of essays? Uh a memoir-ish. And I was like, I was like, you know, a literary Sally Field. They like me, they really like me. And uh so I said, yes, right off that, yes, yes, I'd love to. And uh, having not written any essays to that point, and never wanting to write a memoir, because of knowing about my kind of sad sack, who's that donkey in uh, you know, with the honey bear, uh whatever that Eeyore. Having lived an Eeyore-ish kind of life, I thought, well, nobody's gonna want to read this, and I'm not gonna want to read it either. But, you know, it was uh it was a really good exercise. I'm really glad now that I did it, though in the middle of it I cursed everyone, including myself and the entire uh international, national, um, HarperCollins, uh, the, you know, that I ever read a book in my life, you know, all those things. Yeah. It was a very difficult process for me, but really very worthwhile in the end.

SPEAKER_05 7:59

Therapeutic, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

I think so. I think so, for sure, for sure. Like, you know, I had to write about my mom. Who wants to do that? But anyway, so uh, so then I did a lot of research into my mom's life and around my mom's life and stuff, and uh, you know, I felt uh different. I'd I'd already actually gotten over uh, you know, how much I hated my mother by the time I'd written this, you know, I think I got over it sometime in my 50s. Uh, but I was uh I I you know I just discovered I thought I didn't have a family because I grew up next door to them for about 13 years, and then, you know, never spent that much time with them, didn't think I really had one. And as I was writing this book, I realized, you know, my husband always says, You have an extraordinary family. And I never believed him. And as I was writing the book, I realized he was right. And, you know, I I think now, and I didn't say it in the book, and I wish I had, like everything, all my comedy, all my characters, all my everything comes from my family, you know what I mean? And Newfoundland, of course, generally Newfoundland. And um, and I'm so grateful to them today, and so glad to have them. And uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it was uh it was therapeutic for sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Mary, uh, you you write about a lot of things that you've experienced uh in your life, uh abuse, uh emotional, physical, uh sexual, uh, and and you've already spoken openly about uh about alcohol. Uh Frisco mentioned uh the the therapeutic side of things, but was comedy a bit of escapism uh for you to get away from all of that?

SPEAKER_02 9:44

You know, comedy is the coin of the realm in Newfoundland. If you're not funny, I don't even know what happened to all the unfunny Newfoundland children. They must have died off or something, because really it was the only reason they let you sleep inside or fed you for that matter. So there was, you know, everyone in my family is funnier than I am, but being co comedy is certainly a way of dealing with things. And I don't think it is a running away, because it is facing it dead on, really, isn't it? It's saying the truth, sometimes not dead on, you know, not just baldly stating the truth, but taking the truth, not twisting the truth, but twisting the method to a certain extent so that it will get a laugh. And so many things uh when you get a laugh at something, it opens your mind to things that no amount of lecturing or you know, haranguing or you know uh right thinking will get you. You know, sometimes a laugh will get you there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:49

I know from the book you're always questioning yourself, there's uh those lot of moments of dread, but was there a moment for you when you were a young comedian or younger person where really click, you thought, you know, I can do this, this is what I'm gonna do with my life?

unknown 11:00

No, not really.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Isn't that funny? Yes. I uh, you know, I just had a terrible day on set here uh because it's science fiction, and uh I none of the n none of the lines meant anything to me, so I couldn't say them. And it's so humiliating. And I I remember saying last Friday, you know, I've been knocked down uh uh in a bar and pulled out of there by my hair, and it wasn't nearly as humiliating as the last two days on set have been. So, you know, when you tend to um I guess um every single, you know, I just was on tour, I did a short tour of uh Saskatchewan and um Alberta, and I went up to Whitehorse in um in April and uh no in March actually, and uh, which is a lovely time, I have to say, to be in all those places. Um, but uh um, you know, every night I would um because every night you're putting yourself out there, you know, and so every night there is a certain amount of um is this going to be the night like last Friday was for me, where I'm going to actually humiliate myself beyond belief. Uh luckily I none of those things happened while I was on tour. I had to wait till I came home. Came back to Halifax. But anyway, no, I don't think there is a time when you kind of go, um not for me anyway. Uh and uh and of course, you know, we always get that message, don't we? Like, don't go thinking too much of yourself, you know, don't go rising up, you'll only get confused, you know. Well, a mind out now, you don't swell up and bust. I mean, the the message is endless, and so, you know, you don't dare step a foot over on that side of things.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

That's right. Mary, let's uh quickly talk about uh 22 minutes. What was your vision for that show? And at the time, uh, what did uh you hope it accomplished?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Well, uh, you know, I was way too old to have this naive of a vision, but I thought we could make a difference. You know what I mean? I thought by speaking the truth, uh as our the truth as we knew it, as best we could do it, um, that we would make a difference. Really, I don't think we did, uh, but it was a good show. And uh it was um, you know, Rick and Kathy Jones and Rick Mercer and Kathy Jones and Greg Toomey. They were brilliant. And we had uh Gerald Lunds was our producer and Michael Donovan and Jeff Dion. We had an you know uh we had a brilliant, brilliant bunch of people to work with. And so though it didn't achieve, it's like, you know, when Columbus set out for uh India, he didn't actually get to India, but he did get someplace pretty good. So we didn't actually get to what my vision was, but we got someplace pretty good, I think.

SPEAKER_06 13:51

Oh, you're too humble. It was a fantastic show. I was uh I back to meeting you at the airport, I was starstruck because at the time I was watching 22 minutes every episode. It was a fantastic show. Uh and it still and it still obviously lives in infamy on uh on that's not the right word, but it lives on YouTube. Uh I was watching some old clips uh just the other day. Where did Marg Delahante, the Princess Warrior, come from? Where did that character how did how did that be?

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Back in Codco, Tommy used to do a character called Marg at the Mental, which was based on a person he knew. And so we all used to dress up as Margs, and all the women, including uh, we would all dress as Marg sometimes. And when we were being men, we would be Jerry. So it was Marg and Jerry. So when Codco, when we were finished with that, and uh Kim Campbell was running for the uh for the leadership of the conservatives, I did a thing on CBC radio locally, uh, where I was running also, Marg Delahante. And uh Delahantey seemed like a very exotic name to me. Aunt May had a friend whose name was Marg Delahante, actually. So it kind of came from two places.

SPEAKER_06 14:57

That's great. And the sword from where? Did you just go to a toy store to buy that?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Well, you know, at some point in doing this hours 22 minutes, I used to do Marg, but I used to do Marg in her red robe with a lot of jewelry and all that makeup. And we'd go on the road. And at some point, I think this is how it happened. I said to Jeff Dion, who was our road producer, I said, now that I've got my bangs cut like that, at least my head kind of looks like um, you know, the um warrior princess um Zina.

SPEAKER_06 15:25

What's her name? Yeah, Zina. Zina, the uh princess warrior.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

And I said, we should do a send-up. And he said, You should do, I I think he said, you should do Mark as that. And then my brilliant friend Patty Parsons made the brilliant costume of uh Mark, who went on for 20 years. It was just a bit of felt and a bunch of gold glue. That was great. And a plastic sword from Toys Are Us.

unknown 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

You have uh uh crashed an uh astonishing number of uh press conferences involving uh prime ministers uh from all walks of life. One of my favorite was uh uh Stephen Harper uh and the kiss, the infamous kiss. Uh I I don't want to cross the line here, Mary, but was their tongue involved?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Mr. Harper, excuse me. You guys are gonna have to start saying yay to something, start standing up for something, embrace something, in the interest of the nation, and to save myself the indignity of dying in a one-party liberal dictatorship. I'm volunteering. Go ahead. Embrace me.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

No, no, no, no. Please, it's all bad enough. I mean, you know, I'm I'm willing to go quite far for the country. I love my country, but French kissing Stephen Harper, give me a break. But uh anyway, he's a lousy kisser. No matter what you think of Mr. Harper or his politics, he really is. It's like kissing a fence post.

SPEAKER_06 16:55

You know what was great, Mary? I rewatched the one with Mike Duffy too the other night. And you know, as a as a journalist, we often are looking to stop someone, grabbing them outside a building and asking them a tough question as they walk away from us. But when you're on that one, you couldn't just walk away. You had to you walked with him the whole way. He didn't say a word. How nervous were you for that one?

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Well, I'll tell you what I was for that one. We waited outside for Mike Duffy for seven hours in Ottawa in the winter. You know, so by the time he actually came out, I didn't feel the least bit nervous. My my nerve endings were frozen.

SPEAKER_06 17:32

Could that character exist today? Because I feel like a lot of people have sort of emulated and they with social media today, there's all kinds of TikTokers and Instagrammers that do this kind of great, they do crazy things for attention.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

But you're the original could this character exist today?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Well, you know, when Stephen Harper took over, he had someone who um uh worked at this hour is 22 minutes who played uh, you know, the um single girl uh character Jerry Hall, and he had her arrested and taken away in handcuffs. And then creepily enough, when she finally did get to see him, he asked her if she liked handcuffs.

SPEAKER_06 18:09

No, that's crazy, really.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Anyway, so he wouldn't even let real journalists come within. Remember, there used to be a yellow thing 12 feet back, yeah. So we would never be able to. You could I I suppose Carney, I don't know. Um Mark uh Mark um Critch, you know, would uh do stuff with um with Trudeau, um, you know, uh stop him at different places. But um maybe times have changed, I don't know. I mean, the the you know, when we used to um uh when long, long ago, back before the earth hardened when Rad was young, uh before the uh you know, before the the um um 9-11, you know, we went out to ambush um the premier of Alberta and all the all the um security said to us was shut the door, we're not eating Edmonton. You know, it was just but then now security is you know tippy top.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Uh though one wonders if we're any safer or even less safe. That's a great question. But certainly a lot of security companies have become very, very, very rich.

SPEAKER_06 19:16

Trevor Burrus, Jr. That should be your next book, Mary. That's a great question. You know, it it's fascinating too because you're such a wonderful writer and it it shows in those skits as well. Like to be able to say the things you said on on demand there as you're cornering these people. Um I wonder if you've thought in your head a script if you ever had a chance to confront Trump. Do you fantasize about that sometimes if you could have a chance to get Donald Trump?

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Aaron Powell You know, I don't because he doesn't hear anything or listen to anything. It's you know, and he's no fun, is he? He's just a big pile of rancid poop, kind of, you know. And you just wouldn't want to be near him because he's smelly and horrible, and he's a rapist, and he's you know, been charged with 37 felonies, and you know, none of this I could say. I said it in my book. Like I said, every time I see him on TV, I want to I want to haul the eyeballs out of his head and shove them up in his behind so even he can see how big of an arsehole he really is. But that but he it doesn't matter because he already knows how big an arsehole he is, and he just doesn't care. It reminds me of a joke, uh, the the Newfoundland joke, one of my favorites, where there's this guy from town, we call St. John's Town as if there are no other towns, guy from town is looking for a horse, goes down the southern shore, sees a beautiful white stallion in a field that runs down to the ocean, finds the farmer, farmer says he can buy the horse, the farmer calls the horse over here, Daubin. Only one other thing in the meadow, a huge tree right in the middle of the meadow. And Dobbin comes galloping magnificently across the field and whack, hits himself right in the head. And the um the um fellow from St. John says, he says, You were trying to sell me a blind horse. And the buddy from Fairness says, he says, no Bye. Uh Dobbin's not blind, he he just don't give a fuck. And obviously neither does, neither does Donald Trump, right? But all that had to be taken out of the HarperCollins book because they they tried, you know, Canadian HarperCollins lawyers said some of it had to go. Then when I tried to push, then they sent it to international HarperCollins lawyers who said all of it had to go. So I don't even mention Trump in the book. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 21:31

He's not, yeah, that's crazy. For the record, we will not cut any of this. That's right. That's all staying.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

Uh Mary, you say that uh you're happier than you you've ever been. Uh, what is life like for you now? What are you up to, obviously, besides uh promoting this wonderful book?

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Well, I'm uh doing this series. Uh it's an MGM series. Uh, I can't tell you any more than that because or else I'll just have to have you killed. I think I signed some kind of agreement like that. I don't know. Uh, but I think my H. Said that. And I'm trying, I just went to Berlin with this film called Come Come From Away. No, not Come From Away, called Come Home Year. And so I'm trying to get that film made. And I shot a short film that I'm trying to edit from here on like my phone, which is like impossible and just makes you very unhappy. And uh I don't know what else. Um I I'm sure there's a number of other things that I'm not that I should be on to. Oh, try well, I'll tell you what the worst thing. Oh, that's the train. I'll tell you what the worst thing um is we're trying to get money to someone in Cuba, a friend of ours in Cuba. Oh see, if I was in Newfoundland, we wouldn't have any of this because they took our railway. But anyway, never mind. Um yeah, and and we're just struggling. We got you know, a hundred dollars in, and then I was gonna send some more, and uh, but then somehow or other they don't believe I am who I say I am, and they think there's something terrible going on, like uh, you know, that I'm using somebody else's card or something like that. But we did manage to send some groceries, and there's a way that you can send groceries, and they got them, and um it's um and so it's not like nothing can be done as our Cuban friends, as you know, as Canadians, we love Cuba, we love Cubans, they love us. You know, we have a long-term relationship with them, and I think everybody should look into how they can help their Cuban friends, you know, how they can get some money, some food, some I mean, you know, that bastard Trump, as mom would say, that bastard Trump is after blocking them from getting the oil from Venezuela. And let's face it, they weren't doing that well anyway before the the um you know block blockade. He's always blockading something, isn't he?

SPEAKER_06 24:02

Exactly. Well, we appreciate your time, Mary. We know how busy you are and you have other work to do, but I want to ask you, what's what's the best piece of reaction you've received from the book so far from anyone?

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Well, I I uh my friend, who's my friend from grade six, wrote me the other day, and uh she's you know, you know the way people are who are your friend from grade six, you know, she goes, yeah, no, you know, no, I I just didn't like the way you spoke to Joe Clark. I just didn't like that. I didn't think it was uh but anyway, Maureen uh wrote me and said, you know, she loved the book and she I knocked are you really knocked it out of the park, she said. Oh, and I made it to the Globe and Mail uh bestseller list. Both the general bestsellers, I'm number six, and the Canadian bestsellers, I'm number four. And the star, uh the Toronto Star, who's always been very kind to me. The Toronto Star, God love them. Uh I'm I'm on their bestseller list too. So that's very kind, right? And not very many people have really talked to me about the book yet. I'm wondering how I made the bestseller list when nobody really, except Renee, uh, has talked to me much about the book.

SPEAKER_06 25:08

Well, they're gonna talk about it now that you've been on our show. This is the big time, Mary, so we really appreciate it. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Good, good, good.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Uh the book is called uh Brassy Bit of Aging Crumpet, a memoir in pieces. It is a uh wonderful read. Uh Mary, you are an absolute national treasure. Uh thank you. Uh good luck uh with the book, and uh we appreciate your time today.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Uh that's wonderful. Thank you. Great to talk to you guys.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

What an absolutely wonderful uh conversation with Mary Walsh. The book, again, uh brassy bit of aging crumpet, a memoir in pieces. Uh, it's available through HarperCollins uh wherever you would buy your uh favorite book. So get it.

SPEAKER_06 25:48

It's a great read. I loved her answer on Trump because I I was thinking about, you know, there must be times where she watches him on the news and just thinks, oh man, if I was the Princess Warrior right now, this is what I would say to him and confront. Not surprisingly, was uh outside the box thinking and different than I expected. Uh great conversation. Uh I hope everybody's uh uh gonna enjoy this new weekly format we have. I think it's gonna be great. We're gonna have uh chats like this and uh dig into some other deeper issues uh Sunday morning. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

All right, good stuff. Closerlook at villagemedia.ca. That is our email address. And of course, you can still uh sign up uh at closerlookpodcast.ca. And of course, that's also where you'll you will find uh every back episode of the program. Check it out and bookmark it today for Zach Tronzo, executive producer here at Closer Look and Michael Friscolandi, our editor in chief. I'm Scott Sexmith. Thanks for watching. Have a great week. We'll see you next Sunday, right here on Closer Look.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Frisco and Scott's wardrobe, provided in part by Morris Clothing for Men.