Montreal: CBC is eyeing an English version of the French-language comedy Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin (The Ups and Downs of Sophie Paquin) – despite its lacklustre performance in the Quebec market – and has ordered a half-hour pilot from Montreal-based Sphère Média Plus.

French audiences didn’t get behind the 13 x 60 series when it debuted this fall on Radio-Canada, despite excellent reviews. At its peak, 598,000 viewers watched the Tuesday night show about a single mother (Suzanne Clément) whose life falls to pieces. In Quebec, at least 800,000 viewers have to tune in for a series to be qualified a hit.

CBC comedy chief Anton Leo is confident Sophie has the potential to succeed in the English market. ‘We’re in the midst of surveying the country to find our Sophie,’ he says from his Toronto office.

The English-language version of Sophie will be a half-hour, penned by the French series’ writer, Richard Blaimert. The pilot will likely shoot next month in Montreal. A series could go to air next fall, says Leo.

The pilot marks the network’s second recent adapation of a Quebec show, though its experiment this fall with Rumours – an English version of Sphère’s long-running half-hour comedy Rumeurs, about the staff at a women’s gossip magazine – hasn’t panned out. Its Monday 9 p.m. slot drew only 225,000 viewers at its peak.

‘I think it’s hard for the CBC to get English-Canadians watching consistently,’ says Sphère producer Jocelyn Deschênes. ‘The only way is to try new things, which is what they are doing.’

He remains upbeat about the original series.

‘It takes two seasons here to build an audience. And Sophie Paquin is unusual because it’s not a teleroman and it’s not a sitcom. It’s a mix,’ he says. ‘But we know from e-mails that those who are watching it love her.’

Veteran television maker Moses Znaimer is involved in the English version of Rumeurs but is not attached to the Sophie pilot, says Leo.