It started with a message from the ghost of Margaret Thatcher and ended with Lee Anderson speaking to a sparsely-packed room.
For the past three days the UK has hosted its first National Conservatism Conference, drawing together a diverse rabble of conspiracy theorists, culture warriors, Donald Trump fantatics - and Tory MPs.
For three mad days we heard Home Secretary Suella Braverman brazenly plant the seeds of a leadership campaign, while a prominent backbencher blamed "cultural Marxism" for the fact we're not having enough babies.
We were also treated to a well-known headteacher dramatically screaming "hold the line" to delighted delegates and another MP lamenting the rise of "paganism".
And as the event drew to a close, audience members were urged to "carry on guerrilla warfare", with writer Toby Young telling them: "The lesson of the Vietnam War is that guerrillas can win."
With a ruling party preparing itself for a bruising civil war, the conference was a chance for the right-wing to show us just how bad things had got.
And on this evidence things have got very bad.
The whole thing got off to a bizarre start when conference chairman Christopher DeMuth told the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster that he'd been communicating with the Iron Lady from beyond the grave.
"I am happy to report that she is totally on board," he assured the audience.
Many Tories wisely gave this event a wide berth, and practically everyone else treated it with derision, Labour leader Keir Starmer dismissing it as a "series of mad hatters’ tea parties".
His deputy, Angela Rayner, told the Commons it was a "Trump tribute act conference" and a "carnival of conspiracy".
The conference itself isn't an official Conservative party event, but the fact it was able to attract two members of the cabinet - Ms Braverman and Michael Gove - as well as well-known figures like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Frost, certainly lent it some weight.
There were troubling remarks about the Holocaust and speaker after speaker rallied against "wokery" in what felt like an endless string of diatribes as they wrestled with the fact that the country's moved on.
On day one we saw prominent US-based conservative Yoram Hazony float the idea of a return to national service before MP Miriam Cates claimed the low birth rate is the biggest threat western society faces.
She's singing from the same hymn sheet as Hungary's far-right PM Victor Orban, who has called on the population to get breeding - and who has spoken at previous National Conservatism events.
Ms Cates also accused "woke" schools and universities of "destroying our children's souls".
National Conservatism as a movement centres on traditional families, opposition to immigration and religion - a tricky flex to pull off just days after the Archbishop of Canterbury accused the Government of putting forward "morally unacceptable" legislation.
But at least Tory MP Danny Kruger was on-message when he lashed out at "Marxism and narcissism and paganism", which he claimed was leading to "the radicalisation of a generation".
In an affront to LGBT families, he said that marriages between men and women are "the only possible basis for a safe and successful society".
He described tying the knot as a "public act" and praised couples for "sticking together for the sake of the children" - forcing Mr Sunak to distance himself from the remarks.
Elsewhere Mr Rees-Mogg, who was briefly interrupted by a man who calmly took to the stage to warn the audience of the "characteristics of fascism" - admitted the Tories had scored an own goal trying to fix elections.
He said: "Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.
"We found the people who didn't have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well."
The fact that he backed the plans when they went through Parliament were neither here nor there, seemingly.
If day one wasn't already enough of a rollercoaster, Britain's 'strictest headteacher' Katharine Birbalsingh - who quit as social mobility tsar in January - urged right-wingers to pull their children out of "woke" schools.
An animated Ms Birbalsingh claimed that youngsters are allowed to wear ears and tails because they "identify as cats". It is unclear where this was referring to, but in January a school in Scotland was forced to deny it was happening there following misleading internet rumours.
Her speech finished with her screaming: "For heaven's sake man, stand up and be counted.
"As Russell Crowe says in the film Gladiator - a clip I regularly play to my staff: 'Hold the line, stay with me, what we do in life echoes in eternity."
In the evening commentator Douglas Murray gave a rousing defence of nationalism which sparked a huge backlash, saying: ".I see no reason why every other country in the world, should be prevented from feeling pride in itself, because the Germans mucked up twice in a century."
It wasn't the last time a speaker would leave a sour taste when referencing the Holocaust.
Even before the conference started, it was predictable that historian David Starkey could be problematic, having made a number of ugly comments about race in the past.
And true to form he appeared to suggest organisations like Black Lives Matter envy Jews, saying: "They are characterised by the mark of pain and their strategy is to do exactly what was done to German culture because of Nazism and the Holocaust.
"But the determination is to replace the Holocaust with slavery, in other words this is why Jews are under such attack from the left.
"There's jealousy fundamentally, there's jealousy of the moral primacy of the Holocaust and the determination to replace it with slavery."
Joe Mulhall, director of research at anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, told The Mirror: "The National Conservatism Conference has played host to a number of speakers who have made far-right comments this week.
"David Starkey has a long history of reactionary and racist statements, his comments about the Holocaust and Black Lives Matter are ignorant and offensive."
There was plenty more bizarre and troubling comment.
Pro-Trump US senator JD Vance - who has called for a national ban on abortion and made comments seeming to support the white supremacist voter replacement theory - was given a platform, for example.
For all the bluster about defending British history, standing up to woke lefties and churning out children, there was precious little about improving the lives of the wider population.
And that should worry us. The fact that this movement has taken root in our party of government doesn't bode well for any of us.
The local election results suggest the Tories won't be in No10 for much longer, and the vultures of the right are circling around Mr Sunak.
Ms Braverman looks ready to lead the charge, ready to pick easy fights about culture wars rather than deal with the multitude of problems the country faces.
She and the culture warriors of the right look intent on tearing shreds off the moderates within the Tory Party, just as Trump did across the pond to the Republicans.
A lot of what went down at the first National Conservative Conference may have seemed laughable, but in the end it really wasn't.
