As filming begins on The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ the BBC shares casting details Oliver Savell plays Adrian, alongside a cast including Pam Ferris, Alun Armstrong, Lisa McGrillis and Colin Hoult. What is The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole about and who do the cast play Based on Sue Townsend’s best-selling book … >
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 … >
That any given episode of Call the Midwife will be emotional is a given. This show churns out a resonant tearjerker week after week by both showing life’s cruel realities and allowing for glimpses of hope. But, in this episode, the aim is more to stir up feelings of rage and exasperation, as a young teacher in a relationship … >
If there’s a connective thread between this episode of Call the Midwife and last week’s instalment, it’s that both are concerned with people in difficult and unusual situations having to dig deep for strength. Season 5’s opener told the story of a family encountering the effects of the drug Thalidomide, and here we see a couple struggle to deal … >
Call the Midwife is back for its fifth season – and it’s now set in 1961, so we can expect some of the changing attitudes within society start to seep into the drama. The show immediately has a more modern feel in this premiere episode, with a little bit of Mad Men’s style to the costuming and the feeling … >