The big chill continues as Call The Midwife returns.
Series seven of Call The Midwife comes to TVNZ 1 this week with the midwives facing change on an unprecedented level. James Rampton reports.
Although the members of the Nonnatus House community in Call The Midwife are not related, they are still very much a family.
Heidi Thomas, the creator of the hugely popular British drama about the midwives working out of Nonnatus House in Poplar in the East End of London during the early 1960s, thinks that this is the secret of the show’s success.
In addition, it is very much the central theme of the seventh season, which begins this week.
The 55-year-old writer, who has also written Cranford, Upstairs, Downstairs, Ballet Shoes and Lilies, observes that, “One of the things people seem to really love about Call The Midwife is that it’s centred on a family in Nonnatus House”.
In the new series, that idea of family comes under threat as the fabric of society begins to alter irrevocably. The midwives – including Trixie (Helen George), Barbara (Charlotte Ritchie), Phyllis (Linda Bassett) and Valerie (Jennifer Kirby) – are well aware that all around them the old East End is disappearing.
Slums are being cleared and replaced with audacious new tower blocks to house rapidly changing communities. The midwives’ work forces them to confront several difficult issues, from leprosy and strokes to cataracts and unmarried mothers.
Thomas underlines that, “We see a lot of changes in 1963, particularly in housing. There’s a lot more modern council housing, which was fantastic for the people living there at that time, but it also starts to create social isolation and the breakdown of family structures.
“People were moving out of the East End, and instead of living next door to your mum or across the
street from your aunt, you perhaps were not physically related to your neighbours. Also, there was a sense of a socially upward, more mobile culture that meant people were migrating into London, sometimes from as far away as India or China.”
One of the major changes in season seven of Call The Midwife is the arrival of the show’s first West Indian midwife, Lucille Anderson (played by Leonie Elliott). She comes from the West Indies to work at Nonnatus House.
Thomas, whose husband Stephen McGann plays Dr Turner in the drama, explains that, “Lucille is funny, elegant, bright, unassuming and yet very forthright.
“She represents a whole generation of really fantastic young women who came at the behest of the British Government from their homes in the Commonwealth to train as nurses in Britain.
“They were hugely needed, passionate about the work they were doing but, sadly, they didn’t always receive the welcome here that they should have had a right to expect. While Lucille receives a warm welcome from the Nonnatus community, we do deal with the harsher realities of being a young, black woman in white British society at that time.”
Another major strand in this run of Call The Midwife is how Trixie is dealing with her alcoholism.
Thomas muses that, “I’ve loved writing the character of Trixie. She’s been an important member of the Nonnatus family from the word go. Her journey has become complicated by her alcoholism and it’s affected her personal relationships. “It’s never affected her spirit, but she did have a very unhappy childhood that I think she carries with her. “A lot of Trixie’s glamour, her beauty, her fashion sense – it’s all to do with covering up the very fragile woman she is inside.” The writer happily reports that this storyline has been well received by Alcoholics Anonymous. “We’ve had hugely positive feedback from the AA community, particularly about her sobriety. We continue to liaise with the AA about her journey.” However, things start to prove tricky for Trixie in this season. Thomas reflects that, “We decided it was time to challenge Trixie, as we felt it wouldn’t be realistic if she never stumbled on that path, and Helen once again gives a tour-de-force performance in the role. “We discover something a little more about Trixie, about her hunger for love, and how even though she’s met this gorgeous, funny, respectable dentist, he comes with baggage. “It’s very painful for Trixie. But the path of true love doesn’t run as smoothly as we would like.”
“They were hugely needed, passionate about the work they were doing, but sadly they didn’t always receive the welcome here that they should have had a right to expect.”
– Heidi Thomas on Call The Midwife’s first West Indian midwife