Possible Clues:

• Riddle for cleaner with a debt halved
• 1963 film starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn
• Church procession with no leader is a farce
• Race had become disorderly farce
• Going through the motions?
• 'I back him at a rebus or a — against the best rhymer in the kingdom' (Sheridan, School for Scandal)
• Absurd farce
• Had race fixed -- that's a ridiculous pretence
• Absurd behaviour of cleaner (a dame, not a maiden)
• Ridiculous pretence