She has a real crush on Tom Cogswell

PA to… Simon Turner (Darren Boyd)
Take Note… Fame v Real-life responsibilities
Most likely to… Belt out a show-tune whilst doing the filing
Strengths… She’s the best friend you can ever have
Weaknesses… Reality often comes second place to celebrity

On the whole, Midge thinks everyone’s brilliant. She’s a bouncy, emotionally intelligent space cadet who dropped out of hairdressing college and is now desperate to be famous, at any price.

So she can’t believe her luck when she finds out she’s made it into the final 12 of a TV reality talent show: Wizard Of Oz: Dare To Dream. At last it looks like fame is beckoning for the Scouser wannabe and on top of that she has finally pulled loverboy Robbie – the office totty.

“She’s such an open person who wears her heart on her sleeve and tries to see the best in everyone,” says Annabel. “I’ve really fallen in love with her as a character and there’s so much more to Midge than the fame thing.

“Ultimately she’d be (more…)

PA to… Iain Ebelthite (Mark Benton)
Take Note… Beauty and brains
Most likely to… Make you a millionaire
Strengths… Making rich people even richer
Weaknesses… Crippling lack of self-belief

Freakishly gifted at making rich people even richer, Lucy has no formal education but possesses a phenomenal talent with figures and a natural instinct for wise investments. But, despite her knack for financial wizardry, Lucy has a crippling lack of self-belief and is convinced she’s not good enough to be the boss.

Confident in every other aspect of her life, as soon as a manager walks into the office all Lucy’s business brilliance gets buried beneath a facade of “Miss Friendly Bubbly Efficient PA of the Year”.

But her friends know she’s got what it takes to move up the career ladder, trouble is so does her incompetent (and often drunk) boss Iain (Mark Benton) and he doesn’t want to lose her.

So while Lucy spends her days making millions for Iain’s clients, he spends his days taking credit for all of her hard work.

“It’s frustrating for (more…)

PA to… Rachel Klein (Emily Bruni)
Take Note… Love, Sex or Money?
Most likely to… Bag herself a rich man
Strengths… Calm and collected under pressure
Weaknesses… Can be colder than the office air-conditioning

Born into an extremely wealthy family, Nicole’s world fell apart when her father not only abandoned her mother but left the family penniless. The loss of her father nailed her view of the world – that over and above everything else she’d never be poor again.

Nicole is the embodiment of cynical pessimism. A confident and controlling character who never gets emotionally involved with blokes, instead Nicole uses poor men for thrills and rich men for their wallets.

“Initially people can think Nicole’s a bit of an ice queen because she doesn’t give a lot away and is fiercely independent,” says Maimie.

“But actually she’s (more…)

PA to… Rock van Gelder (Robert Gant)
Take Note… The outsider trying to fit in
Most likely to… Tell you where to stick your filing
Strengths… So intelligent it hurts
Weaknesses… Her mind is most definitely not on the job

A shell-shocked Sid can’t believe she’s working as a PA. in an office where, gallingly, she knows she’s the most intelligent person by a mile. She should be running her own company, not making tea for someone else and, gasp, photocopying.

A repressed intellectual snob, gothic Sid is damaged goods and her own worst enemy.

A super achiever throughout school and university, she’s an uptight genius who doesn’t know how to communicate with people. For Sid, simple things like chatting about the weather are far harder than solving The Times crossword.

But her arrival at Hartmann Payne might not be quite what it seems…

“She’s a complete snob and can’t bear the fact she’s temping for these people, it almost pains her to say the word,” explains Dublin-born Ruth.

“Sid thinks it’s below her and isn’t (more…)

oliviagrant.com

PA to… Rock van Gelder (Robert Gant)
Take Note… Will she ever find equilibrium?
Most likely to… Make her bosses life uncomplicated
Strengths… She loves being a PA more than life itself
Weaknesses… Just what is she hiding?

Grace Darling’s entire raison d’etre is to quite simply be the best. Her route to Hartmann Payne is possibly the most surprising of all the girls, but her being there means more to Grace than any of them. For her, it truly is home.

It seems Grace has no greater ambition than to make her boss Rock Van Gelder’s (Robert Gant) life and work as painless and pleasant as possible.

“The way the show’s creator, Gabbie Asher, described her initially was as a ‘Mary Poppins meets Doris Day’ character, which kind of sums up that upbeat, sprightliness and the fact that Grace is quite the perfection of 1950s femininity,” explains Olivia.

“It’s quite an outdated view (more…)

PA – Grace and Sid (Olivia Grant and Ruth Negga)

Texan-born Rock is something of a Fifties matinee idol and has very retro ideas on sexual politics in the workplace. He likes his women to be more Doris Day than Kerry Katona and very much sees his world as populated with the kind of perfection his PA Grace (Olivia Grant) carefully creates for him.

“Rock sees women in that wholesome, smiley and supportive Doris Day kind of role because that is the way he was raised. That’s the picture in his head from his upbringing and the way his mother looked after his father,” explains Robert.

“Grace fits the bill perfectly. She falls right into his old school notion of what it means to be a PA, a woman, everything.

“And then Sid comes along who couldn’t be more the antithesis of that. She’s the absolute opposite of Grace, from her physical demeanour and her sulky attitude, to the way she sees the world, yet bizarrely there’s a connection between them.”

Rock is Senior Vice (more…)

PA – Midge (Annabel Scholey)

He may be married to Evie, the daughter of head honcho Leo Hartmann, but that still doesn’t make Simon what you’d call a devoted husband.

Yes, he enjoys the kudos and status that marrying the boss’s daughter brings, but monogamous and loving are not words often used when describing this notoriously ruthless and cold-hearted vice-president.

“He’s a terrible Lothario and if there were such a thing as a professional Lothario then I think he’d be the one doing diplomas in it and probably running courses in it as well,” laughs Darren.

“His sexual prowess is something he is noted for so I don’t think his marriage is especially high on his list of priorities. But I do think that’s where a certain level of his arrogance comes from because he’s basically family.

“He has married himself into the position he holds and is well aware of the status that gives him over his peers within the company. It’s all about money and wealth for Simon and being able to display that money and wealth for all to see.

“In a way you can only (more…)

PA – Nicole (Maimie McCoy)

Born to wealth, privilege and education, Rachel is a searing intellect, possesses an extraordinary business ability and has an extremely unselfconscious and eccentric attitude to life. Combining that with a look and a demeanour that can only be described as “ageing toff meets Amy Winehouse”, she’s a no-nonsense force to be reckoned with at Hartmann Payne.

“It’s not everyday you get asked to play a mad upper-class lesbian who wears vintage Chanel and speaks Latin most of the time,” says Emily, with a grin.

“I have to say we’ve worked very hard on Rachel’s look and I would say the main elements of my performance are my hairdo and my almost belt-like mini skirts.

“The hairdo is a cross between a posh toff and Amy Winehouse. It is very big hair and as a junior member of the cast – who shall remain nameless – told me, it’s also rather ageing.

“We wanted Rachel to look posh and imperious but slightly (more…)

PA – Robbie (Jamie Davis)

Having just starred alongside Angelina Jolie in the big screen weepfest A Mighty Heart – the true story of the search for kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl – it’s perhaps not surprising that, despite bagging the Breakout Performance Award at the Cannes Film Festival, for her next role Archie Punjabi was looking for something a bit less emotionally draining.

So when the script for Personal Affairs arrived she realised it was her perfect opportunity to have some fun.

“I was very keen after A Mighty Heart to do a little bit of comedy and let my hair down,” admits Archie.

“I wanted to have a bit of fun because Mighty Heart was so depressing. It was a brilliant thing to do, but it was such an (more…)

PA – Lucy (Laura Aikman)

A selfish, lazy, posh pig of a man who owes his considerable success not down to the contacts he brings to the Hartmann Payne table but the money Lucy (Laura Aikman) makes for him and his clients.

“Iain is a posh yobbo who does nothing and is a law unto himself,” says Mark.

“He has been given this job because of a link with the CEO Leo Hartmann, but he’s clueless and it’s Lucy who does all the work.

“He takes all the credit, yet in reality he hasn’t been anywhere near the office and is off getting bladdered abroad somewhere.”

A true bon vivant, Iain is defined mainly by his absences. He spends a considerable amount of time away drinking his way around Monte Carlo, Paris, Cannes, Aspen… wherever, as long as there’s a (more…)