As in so many episodes of Call the Midwife, the theme of this year’s Christmas special is spelled out by Vanessa Redgrave as the older Jenny Lee in the opening voiceover. “The most precious gifts cost nothing whatsoever,” she says, before an episode that is all about selflessness and thinking of others. Exploring the power behind simply … >
Call the Midwife will run for at least nine seasons, the BBC has confirmed today. Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content, and Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama Commissioning, have announced the commission of Season 7, Season 8 and Season 9. The commission consists of eight 60-minute episodes in each season, plus three more Christmas specials. Call the … >
The creator of Call the Midwife has promised “new challenges and new triumphs” when the show returns next year. This year’s Christmas special began filming in South Africa near Cape Town in April. Eight new episodes will follow in early 2017. Now set in 1962, Season 6 is being filmed on location at the historic Chatham dockyard, London’s East End, and the drama’s … >
After Jenna Coleman’s surprisingly long stint as Clara Oswald came to a close last year, the TARDIS is vacant once again. But even though Doctor Who is on the verge of massive change with Steven Moffat being replaced as showrunner by Chris Chibnall in 2018, it seems likely that at least one thing Moffat will … >
Call the Midwife returns to BBC One for a fifth season. The year is 1961, and Poplar is beginning to feel the winds of social change – along with improvements in housing, sanitation and healthcare. But for the midwives and nuns of Nonnatus House who care for the sick and bring new life into the … >
This season, Call the Midwife has had perhaps its most serialised story yet with the births of multiple babies with deformities. In this episode, Thalidomide is finally revealed to the characters as the cause of these issues, and it leaves everyone feeling a certain amount of responsibility and frustration at not being able to prevent something they were so … >
In this episode, the arrival of the contraceptive pill splits opinions within Nonnatus House in a very neat divide between the older midwives and the younger ones. It would be easy to suggest that this argument is one of religious and moral principles being ignored by those that don’t worry quite as much about them, but with … >
How fear results in important truths being concealed makes for the backbone of this heartbreaking episode of Call the Midwife, as the consequences of a series of violent attacks against women in Poplar are explored. It’s to the show’s credit that it doesn’t do what so many other shows would in actually showing the brutal assaults. Its interest … >
Call the Midwife isn’t known for dabbling in mystery, but it tries its hand at it here and pulls it off remarkably well. The show positions the central mother, Roseanne Dawley (Celeste Dodwell), to this week’s main storyline as something of an enigma, hiding secrets and questioning herself at every turn but for reasons we aren’t able to … >
This week’s Call the Midwife aims to be about how the allure of a university education could be derailed by an unexpected pregnancy, while dealing with the simmering tension of Barbara’s relationship with Tom (and her lack of communication with Trixie). The new season’s fourth episode also shows us that there are more cases of babies affected by … >