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…)

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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…)