 (PoliticsWatch posted
February 6, 2004) OTTAWA
- Who knew that working for Joe Volpe or Liza Frulla would be interesting enough to make an
hour-long TV show about?
Apparently the CBC did.
Wednesday night will mark the premiere of Snakes and Ladders, a new six-part humourous drama following the exploits of a young woman who lands a job as a special assistant to a fictional Human Resources and Government Services minister named Audrey Flankman (played by Catherine Disher).
"Shannon Jennings (Amy Price-Francis) must chart her way through the world of hidden agendas, scrums and damage control while trying to find some time for dating," explains the CBC website.
The key characters on the program are listed as the minister's Executive Assistant Patrick Lewis (Marcel Jeannin), Press Secretary Josée Malenfant (Maxim Roy) and Legislative Assistant Rob Elliot (Travis Ferris).
Shot in Halifax, the show has sets that resemble the Foyer and Rotunda of
the Centre Block, complete with marble halls. The architecture may be similar, but not the politics. You will never hear the words Liberal, Bloc or Tory
uttered on Snakes and Ladders, as the series never uses real political party names or even fictional party names.
"Its backstage to something that we're kind of curious and fascinated by," explains the show's creator and executive producer, Wayne Grigsby, who also created the Trudeau mini series. "Essentially it's an office politics show.
"It's just funny in the way that Ottawa is funny."
Grigsby's background as a political journalist in Montreal in
the 70s and 80s played a role in his interest in creating the program about political machinations.
Snakes and Ladders has been in the works since 1999, when Grigsby first wrote the pilot. After he completed the successful Trudeau series, he lobbied the CBC to revisit the program and began consulting with "a couple dozen" people who had been or were executive assistants, legislative assistants and chiefs of staff.
"Some of them had moved on to other jobs, other were still working on the Hill in ministerial offices," he explained.
But don't expect a program similar to the West Wing, which is heavy on big social issues of the day.
"If we deal with an issue, it's sort of secondary to what problems they trigger within the office," explains Grigsby.
In the second episode, for example, the minister has a problem with a political backer who won't honour his campaign pledge until she helps him get a government contract.
"Yeah, we get in our points about the whole nature of patronage, but it's really secondary to the idea that our minister has a problem and her staff has to solve it."
While the show tries to avoid focusing on politics and issues, there are many parallels with Snakes and Ladders and what's going on in Ottawa today.
"We made it a bit more specific to the Canadian situation," he explains of the series subplot. "Our fictional cabinet minister backed the wrong candidate for the leadership race, just to sort of tie it in to the events of February 2004."
The CBC recently held a
screening of the premiere episode for about a dozen political
staffers at the NAC in Ottawa.
Peter Graham, who is director
of communications for Revenue Minister Stan Keyes, was among
those who saw it.
"There are some similarities to what it's like to be a
political assistant, and there are some things which are
complete fabrications."
Graham notes that the staffers
who viewed the screening noticed the small things on the program
that were not similar to real life on the Hill.
"Even though we're the
easiest audience, we're probably the biggest critics because
we're sitting there going, 'We'll I don't think they have enough
Blackberries, because political assistants are addicted to their
Blackberries.'"
Graham said he didn't think that political assistants dressed as
well as the actors on the show.
"It's kind of fun to see
your career choice on TV," he explains. "I think very
few people actually know we even exist, so it's kind of fun to
see that.
Check out these related
links:
 Snakes
and Ladders website
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