A social history that delivers
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The creator and three of the cast of Call the Midwife discuss the secrets of the BBC drama’s extraordinary longevity
can’t believe it’s been 10 years,” said Helen George, who plays Nurse Trixie Franklin in Call the Midwife. “It’s been a fantastic ride, from not knowing if it was going to be more than six episodes to here – 10 years later.” Rare is the TV drama that makes it to its tenth series. But, since the programme detailing the ever-eventful happenings at the nursing convent of Nonnatus House first appeared on 15 January 2012, it has become a Sunday-evening staple. The series offers a glimpse of yesteryear London via the microcosm of nurses, nuns and soon-to-be mums, with their values and impositions
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reflecting the evolving society around them. Its longevity was the topic of discussion at the RTS event “Comfort and challenge: celebrating 10 years of Call the Midwife”. The secret of its success, according to George, was that, while it was originally based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, the show’s creator and writer, Heidi Thomas, continued to have “this magnificent way of reflecting what’s going on… politically and medically back to Nonnatus House in the 1960s. It makes us all realise that we’re going around in circles slightly, and that things sometimes progress, but sometimes they don’t.”
The three actors on the panel – George, Jenny Agutter, who stars as Sister Julienne, and Leonie Elliott, who plays Lucille Anderson – each presen ted a clip that, in their view, encapsulated the spirit of Call the Midwife. Demonstrating her point, George’s clip was from the finale of the last series, in which Trixie makes an impassioned plea to keep Nonnatus House in public service by reading out the names of 117 women who it had helped. “It seems so relevant today to list those names, when, on the anniversary of Covid, names were listed in exactly the same way. This was filmed way before Covid, but Heidi has this sixth sense to be able to predict,” said George.
BBC
Leonie Elliott (left) as Lucille Anderson and Helen George as Trixie Franklin
