The anecdotes are getting better.
Five hustings down, still seven to go - but the comedy standard has certainly increased.
Local MP Alex Chalk, introducing his favoured candidate for No10, Rishi Sunak, told the 2,000 Conservative members packed into The Centaur hall at Cheltenham Racecourse a funny story about how he was recently mistaken for a one-time Labour leadership hopeful.
Knocking doors in his Gloucestershire constituency, he was told by one voter: “You might be better than your brother but we don’t want you here either.”
He had apparently been mistaken for David Miliband - and once Chalk had mentioned it the resemblance was impossible to unsee.
Then came Sunak himself.
The delivery is still overstated, slightly false and a bit desperate like a children’s TV presenter trying to enthuse the little darlings.
But he is getting funnier - and not just with self-deprecating jokes about his height or, more specifically, lack thereof.
The former Chancellor told how he was stopped in the street by a woman who told him: “You and Boris are very different, aren’t you?”
Sunak confided to the Tory activists: “I thought, ‘Yes, where is this going?’”
The woman had been investigating their respective follicles.
“He looks like he’s lost his hairbrush but you look like your mum has brushed your hair,” she informed the exquisitely coiffed multi-millionaire ex-Chancellor.
Sunak also had a better reception than his Downing Street rival Liz Truss, with the grassroots whooping, cheering and applauding his arrival.
Chalk told them his man was the “candidate who can speak not just to the party but the country” and “save our country from the misery of a Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrat stitch-up which would literally tear our country apart”.
The two-horse race for No10 took place in the iconic location of Cheltenham Racecourse, with the surrounding, sunkissed, rolling countryside bathed in 30C (86F) heat.
But the contest, according to polls, is far from neck and neck nor heading for a photo finish.
Yet, still miles from the final furlong, Truss could be stumbling at some difficult fences.
The gaffe-prone hopeful blundered by referring to projects “here in Derbyshire” - despite being scores of miles south west in Gloucestershire.
Contrast that with Sunak who, in his stump speech, highlighted how as Chancellor he unleashed cash to improve a local road, and was introduced by the local MP.
Truss was also forced to insist “I am my own person” as she was grilled about dressing like Margaret Thatcher - despite trying to emulate the Iron Lady.
But aside from the ghost of Thatcher once again haunting a Conservative leadership battle, and the light-hearted banter, there was a real bombshell moment when a clearly emotional Sunak issued his strongest warning yet about Ms Truss’s, um, limited plan to ease the cost of living crisis by reversing the 1.25% rise in national insurance.
Following the proposal would mean “we are going to, as a Conservative Government, leave millions of incredibly vulnerable people at the risk of real destitution”, he claimed.
The challenger to the bookies’ favourite had launched a shock, mid-race intervention which will enliven the contest and will provoke further questions further along the course.
Truss will need better plans and better answers to just how she will help those genuinely scared about the looming fuel price hike.
Finally, a word for the Sunak fans in the crowd - he’s more than capable of defending himself so there was no need to boo and jeer last night’s hustings host, Telegraph journalist Camilla Tominey, for asking perfectly reasonable, very relevant questions.
You’re supposed to be better than that.
