When Leah McLaren made her writing debut at London newspaper the Spectator in 2001, she made more than a few headlines herself.

See, the Canadian Globe and Mail columnist who travelled overseas to expand her horizons wrote a front-page essay on why British men were the world’s worst lovers and how they were all closeted homosexuals. She should’ve figured the country’s menfolk wouldn’t respond with roses and chocolate in hand.

But some good came out of the ensuing media maelstrom and public scorn – not only did McLaren become a widely known writer, but her dating experiences became fodder for Abroad, a new CBC TV-movie that serves as a pilot to a future series.

It centres on fetching twentysomething Amy Pearce (Liane Balaban, Last Chance Harvey) as she arrives in London, meets her kooky flatmates, starts a job at the London Daily Post, and starts dating. It’s a premise that Balaban thinks has wide appeal, despite being set away from Canadian audiences.

“It seems like the problems with British men are the problems that many men seem to have in the West, with fear of commitment, lack of chivalry and proper gentlemanliness,” she says, on the line from London, where some of the series is shot.

Rounded out with characters like dapper business writer Billy (Andrew Buchan), Amy’s frightening boss Jemima (Sally Phillips), photographer Edward (Adam Rayner) and editor Max (Seán Cullen), Abroad is a romantic romp in the vein of Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

McLaren, who is now married and lives in London, talked with TVGuide.ca about the movie, being a hated woman, and whether she still thinks British men are bad in bed.
 
TVGuide.ca: Did you envision your experiences in London as a film while you were going through it?
Leah McLaren: God, no! After I wrote the article for the Spectator about the romantic ineptitude of English men, there was a huge uproar in the British press. Tabloids ran nasty stories about me and I went on TV to defend myself – it was pretty bizarre and uncomfortable in a lot of ways. I got a ton of mail, mostly from pensioners in Oxfordshire saying they'd be pleased to show me what proper English blokes were made of.

TVG: How far along are you with the series? Will Amy eventually write books, like you, or visit Canada?
LM: We're working on a second episode script, which we plan to pitch to U.K. broadcasters – the show is a natural fit for a U.K.-Canada co-production. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to reveal, but ... I wouldn't rule anything out for Amy. I think it would be incredibly cool to have her come back to Canada at some point. The idea has definitely come up in story meetings. As for debut dates, it's still very much up in the air, but rest assured, when the moment comes, TV Guide will be first to know.

TVG: I know it’s inspired by your life, but how much of the pilot is true?
LM: Ha, everyone asks me this. And the answer is: specifically not much, broadly quite a lot. While the characters are all fictional, they are composites drawn from people I've known and worked with in real life.

Much of the movie is set in a newsroom, and the cast of characters inside it are very much based on people I've known both in Canada and Britain, but not anyone in particular. I'm sorry if that sounds like a cop out but it's true!


Amy and her love interest

As for the stuff that happens, not everything that happens to Amy happened to me, but some of it certainly did. Particularly the awful stuff – getting humiliated on bad dates, and lambasted by snarky English people in the media. Generally feeling like a fish out of water, flopping around helplessly on the pavement. It's meant to be funny in the show, but I can assure you it wasn't funny at the time.

TVG: Amy says in the pilot that she’s loved British culture for years. Can you explain your fascination with England?
LM: I live in London now and I do love it here. I still find it very foreign and very enchanting on all sorts of levels. At the moment I'm typing this from my office, and through the window there are a bunch of old Victorian rooftops and they're lined with chimney pots. Just the word chimney pots makes me shiver with delight. It reminds me of Mary Poppins.

So much of the city is like a story book, really. And yet there is another London too – a grittier, dangerous place with much bigger social problems than a city like Toronto, say. You don't hear about 11-year-olds stabbing each other for mobile phones in Toronto. I think it's the tension between the two polarities that makes London such an exciting place to live.

TVG: Do you still get backlash from your article about English males?
LM: People still occasionally bring it up, but less often, thank god. For a long time it was really embarrassing because I'd always be introduced at cocktail parties as, ‘the girl who wrote about how English men are all secretly gay and terrible in bed.’ It was not a great way to enter a room.

TVG: Do you stand by your article or have you changed mind?
LM: I still think the boarding school system serious screws up a lot of upper-middle class English men both emotionally and sexually. It doesn't take a genius to come to this conclusion. They're separated from their mothers at age seven. Paging Dr. Freud! I'm not dating anymore – I wisely married a Canadian – but I have a lot of English girlfriends and they tell me stories about the men they date, so I'm pretty secure in the knowledge that not much has changed on that front.

Having said that, I have a much broader view of English men having lived here, cumulatively, for a few years now. There is such a diverse and sociable culture here. People are fantastic conversationalists, so interested and interesting and quick with a laugh and a joke – while I didn't much enjoy dating English men, I think there's no one better to share a pint of lager with.

TVG: Can you tell me about your second novel, and any other projects you have on the go?
LM: I'm currently in rewrites on my second novel. It's with HarperCollins Canada and if I get my butt in gear, it should be coming out next year. I'm also writing a lot for the Spectator here in London. I have a few other projects for radio and television that are still in the tender infant stages.

And of course there's my Globe column. I also write for various publications including Toronto Life, Chatelaine and the Times of London. Like Amy, I'm always available for work!


Abroad airs Sunday. March 14, at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Thoughts? melissa@tvguide.ca or sound off below.

 

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