LAST RESORT
CBC’S new Hubbards-shot comedy, Moonshine, premieres on Sept. 14
If it looks like the cast members of the new CBC comedy Moonshine are having a blast topping each other with one outrageous deed after another, that’s because they really are.
The new series premiering on Tuesday night at 9 p.m. was filmed in Hubbards and along the South Shore in the waning days of summer in 2020, when the East Coast was enjoying the Atlantic bubble grace period from COVID-19, and feature and series production had ground to a halt nearly everywhere else.
Set in a seaside resort called Moonshine in the fictional town of Foxton, the show chronicles the intergenerational squabbles of the Finley-cullen family as they fight for control of the holiday getaway property that is starting to look a little rough around the edges.
It’s a bit of a romp with clandestine romances, controversial inheritances and a nightly beach bonfire that make the whole thing feel like a vicarious vacation on the small screen, which is pretty much what its creator Sheri Elwood (Call Me Fitz) intended.
“Part of the inspiration for writing this show was so I could write myself a summer vacation in Nova Scotia, because it’s been a long time since I’ve been back,” says the writer and producer, back on the set of the show for its second season now in production.
“It was fantastic, I feel that we really lucked out during the pandemic. We were one of the first series to go to camera, and we felt so protected. We built our own backlot, and I really did feel like we were in magical, protected fairyland, a summer camp for grownups.”
Except the cast members are playing grownups who don’t exactly act grownup. Jennifer Finnigan (Sanctuary) plays the prodigal daughter Lidia, now an architect in Toronto who returns to Moonshine for the first time in years to discover that her recently deceased aunt has left her a share in the property.
That doesn’t sit so well with kid sister Rhian (Anastasia Phillips), who has stayed on to look after the upkeep of the resort, which is haphazardly run by aging hippie parents Ken & Bea (Peter Macneill & Corrine Koslo).
As Lidia’s marriage disintegrates, Rhian plots to sabotage her efforts to bring Moonshine into the 21st century, with a ripple effect that causes chaos throughout the many branches of the Finleycullen clan.
Finnigan first got a taste of her character just before the start of the pandemic, and was thrilled by the opportunities presented by Elwood’s script as Lidia began digging through the mess of her life and “getting down to the nitty-gritty” of what it’s all about.
“I loved the story of her and her sisters, and I loved this crazy family,” she says. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, I just want to work on shows that I want to watch, and that I truly enjoy. I just wanted to know this family.”
As Rhian, Phillips got the chance to play a character unrestrained by period costumes — as per her roles on Reign, Bomb Girls and Murdoch Mysteries — to play the family wild child whose behaviour usually bears no sign of impulse control.
“It was terrifying,” she says of Rhian’s unbridled capacity for fury. “It felt like a freefall, and either it was going to be awful or I was going to tap into something that I feel is true.
“I keep saying that the only way I draw from it is when I think about myself as the most awkward 11- or 12-year-old going through puberty, that hasn’t learned who to put any masks on in order to function in the world.
Phillips also drew from her experience as a middle child among three sisters who understands that unique family dysfunction, from a slightly older generation when children were allowed to cut loose and get a few scrapes along the way.
“Who is that raw nerve of a girl, who’s not apologizing for it?” she says. “I thought she was amazing, and I feel like Rhian is teaching me a lot about life ... and how to cut lawns. She’s very liberating, and it’s all Sheri really. I ride the wave.”
Elwood knows that wave all too well, as she spent many summers growing up in Hubbards as part of a blended family with halfsiblings and many layers of complexity just like those of the Finley-cullens.
When she looks out the window of the building that represents the main lodge of Moonshine, she can see her mother’s house not far away, and she’s reminded of why she loves writing about complicated families where not everyone gets along all of the time.
So why not set all of that on the East Coast, where those complications can have a remarkable backdrop that doesn’t always get its due on national TV?
“One of the reasons that I love this part of Nova Scotia is that is really is riddled with draft dodgers and drug smugglers and people who are maybe meddling in the grey area of what one would consider to be traditional ethics,” says Elwood.
“I really wanted to put a spotlight on that, although the (ethics) part is made up, I had to say that or my mother would be very upset with me. But there are shades of it around, and in the summertime, there really is a spirit of anything goes and this family embodies that, warts and all.”