Air Farce New Year’s Eve special on CBC targets Duffy, Trump, Star Wars

The Force is back this year, and so is The Farce.

Canada’s most-popular comedy troupe, The Royal Canadian Air Farce, has been helping Canadians ring in the New Year on TV since 1992.

They’re back again this year on CBC with “Air Farce New Year’s Eve 2015.” Last year’s special was the biggest draw yet, pulling in over 1.8 million viewers.

2015 offered plenty to lampoon, including the return of “Star Wars,” Donald Trump and the Mike Duffy hearings. With the Chicken Cannon long mothballed, the messy F-Bomb is loaded and ready to splatter over these targets and more.

Helping the Farcers out this time are special guests Russell Peters, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Toronto Blue Jay Dalton Pompey, as well as veteran Toronto sketch comedian Pat Thornton. Thornton, back for a third year in a row, gets to play two of the biggest headline grabbers of 2015: Trump and Duffy.

Joining the regulars is Emma Hunter. The Etobicoke native is the 14th person to join Air Farce, dating back to the troupe’s CBC radio roots beginning in the early ’70s.

“I’ve already invited her back for next year,” says founding member Don Ferguson, again also acting as executive producer. “She’s not afraid of comedy. A lot of people don’t quite commit all the way. She’s totally into it from the get go.”

Hunter says shooting the show “was probably one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had.” Working with “legends” Ferguson and the other original cast member, Luba Goy, “was a real trip,” she says. “It was surreal, I kept going, ‘This is not my life, no way!'”

Hunter was especially jazzed about playing a man in one sketch — actor Jonny Harris from “Murdoch Mysteries” and “Still Standing.”

“I just love the Newfoundland accent anyway and then the fact that I got to be a man was a blast,” says Hunter. “Putting on this wig, drawing lines around my Adam’s apple and putting on this man’s suit, I just thought, ‘This is rad!'”

Hunter says she’s played men before in comedy sketches. “I do a pretty bad-ass Napoleon,” she says. Previously she was part of the comedy troupe “She Said What” and has performed on “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” as well as “Match Game,” “Degrassi” and “Spun Out.”

She’s impersonated everyone from Kate Middleton to Paula Deen to Carly Rae Jepsen. She can also be seen when CBC’s “Mr. D” returns for a fifth season on Jan. 19. Hunter plays a high strung new teacher named Nisha. That series is shot in Halifax, and, naturally, Hunter had a blast working there, too. “Somebody paid for me to get on a plane and go act somewhere. It was nuts!”

Her parents were both born in the UK and Hunter says she grew up on a steady diet of Brit-coms.

“I’ve seen every episode of ‘Fawlty Towers’ at least a dozen times,” she says, citing “Yes, Minister” and “Are You Being Served?” as other big influences.

Hunter studied theatre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and says learning the classics has helped with her sketch timing. “There are parts of ‘Merchant of Venice’ that are just really funny.”

She is part of a new wave of young Air Farce recruits, joining the additions of Second City veteran Darryl Hinds and stand-up comedian Aisha Alfa. Craig Lauzon, who joined full-time in 2004, is back along with veterans Goy and Ferguson.

Gone after a decade are Alan Park and Penelope Corrin. Ferguson praised them both but confirms Park wasn’t offered a contract heading into this New Year’s show. Corrin, who partners with Park off-screen, opted to quit.

This provided an opening for Hunter and Ferguson says her positive energy lifted the entire cast.

“Right from the first table read, everybody was totally into it,” he says. “Luba was having more fun, we all had a lot of fun, it was just a good mix of people.”

Hunter says the cast could not have been more welcoming.

“They have this ego-less vibe,” she says. “You walk into this space — it’s theirs, they created it — it’s an amazing legacy in Canadian comedy.”

— Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.