Sunshine Sketches: Sunday February 12th, 8PM on CBC

Deb: Many projects come and go. Some are fun, some are successful, some are a nightmare, and some are special.

Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town is special.

If you are Canadian, this is a must-see as it is a proud part of our heritage. If you are not, please consider watching as it is great family viewing.  Colin and I have seen a copy and it is delightful, funny, and surprising.

Colin and Deb on set.

Sunshine Sketches was written by Stephen Leacock in 1912. Mr. Leacock  was a humourist and writer of fiction who was born in Hampshire, England in 1869. He came to Canada with his family at the age of six and was educated among other schools at the prestigious Upper Canada College in Toronto and the University of Chicago where he received a doctorate in political science and political economy. He soon became disillusioned with politics (smart lad) and turned to writing, with fiction and humour a specialty. He started out his literary career writing short stories that were published in magazines in Canada and the U.S. and became very popular all over the world. Around 1911 it was said that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Still true today!!!  :-)

Between 1915 and 1925, he was the most popular humourist in the world.

Groucho Marx and Jack Benny were among his biggest fans. He was a huge influence on them when they were young vaudevillians and fifty years after first reading him they still considered him one of their favourite comic writers.

Sunshine Sketches was shot in the thinly-disguised town of Mariposa, a small town in Ontario that Leacock was all too familiar with. The story is based on fact and fiction or, I should say, fact and embellishment.

This production is a virtual who’s who of Canadian talent, with the great Gordon Pinsent at the helm. We are proud of it and wanted to share. Please consider spending some time with us in this charming little town. 

Barbara: I saw the trailer for this just the other night and it looks fabulous! Beautifully shot and with some great stars (including our dear Deb and Colin). I’m so glad you remembered to remind us, Deb—because TV shows, especially Canadian ones, tend to fall through the cracks. I really want to catch this one!

We couldn’t get the trailer to embed here, but if you go to this link, you can see a really cute (and not too long) making-of doc.

My Little Mosque

Deb: After six seasons, we wrapped Little Mosque on the Prairie in Toronto last night.

Deb on set with most of the Little Mosque cast

This last month has been full to the brim with emotion. We have been through a lot together, this cast. We have over the six years shared joy and mourning. We have welcomed babies into the world, and eulogized dear friends and family. We have celebrated weddings and lamented departures of cast friends who moved on to other things. The six years have not been without incident though and we have over time griped and gossiped and complained. That’s part of the gig.

But in these last months of the final season, all of that has just fallen away and all we are left with is friendship and adoration for each other, and a deep sense of pride for having been involved with this show.

Little Mosque on the Prairie will always be a highlight of my career because of its message of tolerance, inclusion and illumination. It is seen in almost 100 countries around the globe and hopefully the message they intended is getting out. Simply put, that people are people. I have learned so much about the Muslim faith on this show and have embraced the differences and the similarities to mine.

But what I will miss the most is the laughs. The only thing, and I mean ONLY thing, that can put a spring in my step at 5 am is the knowledge that I am about to start laughing and not stop for the next twelve hours. Honestly, it is the closest I get to feeling like a kid again. And anytime I want to complain I think, “Really? You come in and get paid to work with talented lovely people, you get free food and time between shots to check Facebook, and every time your feet are tired someone is there with slippers.”

My darling cast member and dear friend Sheila and I have been making a point this last season to catch ourselves when even the tiniest complaint threatens to permeate the laughter. We look at each other surrounded by fun and say, “What the hell are we complaining about?”

We have been brimming with emotion with each day that sees another cast member wrap. Last night there was just three of us left. Sheila, girl of my heart; Neil, the nicest man on earth whom I have known since he was a kid; and myself. We cried. Man, did we. For everything. For the show that we have shared and the life we have shared during that show. And then we dried our tears and laughed. And then we had drinks and laughed some more.

The show-biz family is a movable feast. When you are in the show, they become such a huge part of your life. When the show ends, some will remain and some will depart leaving just a lovely memory of a time of your life. And like most actors, I have no idea where my next job will come from. Right now, I don’t care. Mosque is going to stay with me just a tad longer.

Barbara: Oh, Deb, I so feel for you right now. It’s a close, maybe even uniquely close work-environment being on a set (if you share a similar experience in another job, please let us know!). You are thrown together by happenstance (okay, and talent), you must pretend to be other people with different relationships, you must bond with those around you whether you want to or not, you must put up with crap and be an unsuspecting shoulder, you often discover souls you would never otherwise have crossed paths with or chosen as friends, and you bond before you even know it. The gamut of this relationship can run its course over a day, a week, a month, or it can evolve over a few months a year for several years, as in your case, Deb.

It’s strange. And intense. And beautiful.

Kinda like a family.

A Day In The Life Of Little Mosque On The Prairie

Deb: Here we are in the thick of shooting season six of Little Mosque on the Prairie. It is the last season that we are doing right now, and I thought it would be nice to pay a little farewell to it here at The Middle Ages.

For those of you who watch, I want to be clear that the final season will air this fall on CBC. For those of you who don’t watch it, you may enjoy it anyway. I wasn’t able to shoot any actual scenes out of respect for the dreaded “spoiler alert”, but I wanted you to meet some of the cast and get an insight into a day on a set.  Not everyone was in on the day I shot, so there are some wonderful actors missing. I hope they are represented by the spirit of the film.

Thanks to my boys, Luke for editing, and Colin for posting this for me. And a special thank you to the Little Mosque team who over these last six years have given me employment, laughs, and a pay-cheque, not in that order. I will always be proud of this little Canadian show seen around the globe, which has shone a light on understanding and tolerance. 

Barbara: I just loved this, Deb. I spend time on sets and yet still found this adorable and sweet to watch. Thanks so much for taking the time to put it together. And thanks to all your peeps for being so gracious and sweet. For our readers: the show isn't available yet to see if you don't live in Canada ... unless you buy the seasons online (it's a really cute show and Deb is so funny). 

An Arts Fart

Barbara: I know I just ranted about our recent national election, but I have one more point I want to make that’s very near and dear to my heart.

This rant started after I heard that someone yelled to our Prime Minister right after he won the election to “kill the CBC” (something he has in fact insinuated he might do). Now for those of you readers not from this country, this is an easy catch-up (for my point). The CBC is our national public broadcaster. They produce and air mostly Canadian content. Because it is government-owned, its Canadian content is largely protected. But because taxpayers pay for it to survive, its existence is often threatened.

“Kill the CBC” is a regular call to arms from certain types. And I always wonder why. I mean, first of all it’s a business like any other, filled with employees who rely on it for their paychecks (so they can, yes, pay their taxes and boost the economy with their confident spending). These people (whether writers, actors, producers or administrators) are as worthy of jobs as the next guy. Would people line up to shout at our elected officials to “Kill Schools” or “Kill the Bank of Canada” or even “Kill GE”?

So let’s ask those taxpayers who hate it––why do you gang up on the CBC? Is it because it’s an arts’ based forum and therefore not “serious”? The CBC features TV shows and radio programs and films and news and documentaries. Are TV and radio not as worthy as, say, drilling for oil? Now I’m not going to debate the merit of any specific show, but I will ask: who doesn’t friggin watch TV, listen to music, read, or watch a movie every now and then?! I mean what would we do without our arts? We’re not talking hoity, evening-gowned snobs sipping champagne and flicking channels with manicured fingernails (although let’s presume they do too). We’re talking virtually every single ordinary one of us!

All of us rely on some form of the arts to help us get by. To make us normal, functioning members of society and not just work-oriented automatons. The arts are as vital to our survival as healthcare and education. And they make us a hell of lot more fun and interesting to be around.

Deb: I have been employed by the CBC many times in my career. I have listened to CBC radio and I grew up on everything from the Friendly Giant to Rick Mercer. The CBC gives Canadians a starting point, a common ground if you will. Is it perfect? No. What is, I ask you? When I travel the country for Little Mosque and meet the fans, I see firsthand what the CBC means to Canada. Not everyone lives in the big cities, flipping through 200plus channels.

Can you imagine for one minute, Britain scrapping the BBC? It would never happen. They hold onto their precious institutions and so should we. 


PS You can also visit Friends of the CBC