OUR TEN-YEAR LABOUR OF LOVE
To mark Call The Midwife’s tenth anniversary, Jenny Agutter, Helen George, Laura Main and Judy Parfitt tell how they delivered the drama of the decade...
When BAFTA winning writer Heidi Thomas was asked if she was interested in writing a script based on the memoirs of a 1950s midwife in the East End of London, she didn’t have high hopes.
‘I’d just done Cranford and I was looking for another period project,’ she says. ‘But I didn’t consider a drama set in the 1950s as period — that seemed strange to someone born in 1962. And the cover of the book had four grubby little urchins on it, so I was worried it would be too twee. But by the time I got to page 17 I knew I had to do it.’
Little did she know that Call The Midwife would go on to become the most consistently popular drama of the past decade on BBC1 with regular ratings of more than 8 million, as well as an annual Christmas hit, and that a decade on she would still be writing it. Yes, the lives and loves of a group of nuns and midwives in poverty-stricken Poplar provide cosy Sunday evening entertainment, but the show is far more than that — it’s a chronicle of
‘I signed up as a nun and ended up married’ LAURA MAIN
post-war social history, medical progress and scandal, and the changing role of women in an ever more liberated world.
Over the years beloved characters have come and gone, but today with series ten about to air, four of the cast who have been with the show from day one are celebrating their anniversary with tea and cake — just as they do in the show — for our photoshoot. Jenny Agutter who plays Sister Julienne, the leader of the religious order working with the midwives, believes it’s the fact we can all relate to it that has made the show so perennially popular. ‘People love that it’s about community, about how people work together,’ she says. ‘The interesting thing about having a series set just 60 years ago is that it’s the past, but it still relates to our present day.
‘I remember reading the first scripts and thinking they were brilliant, but they felt more like something from Victorian times than the 1950s. It never occurred to me that people would fall in love with the show and it would go on and on.’ Heidi Thomas and the stars of
the series receive letters from all over the world from people revealing how the programme has touched them. Judy Parfitt says she often fears that her character Sister Monica Joan, who’s physically frail and suffering from dementia, doesn’t add much to the show — but fan letters say otherwise. ‘I sometimes say to the producers, “If you want to kill me off, I won’t mind”, but there’s obviously something about the character that strikes a chord with people,’ she says. ‘She has dementia and that is something many of us know — I watched my own husband go through it.
‘Sometimes Sister Monica Joan is away with the fairies, but at other times she’s incredibly perceptive. I loved her phase when she was going around nicking things. I’d go into supermarkets and they’d say, “She’s here! Quick, lock everything up!” Even though I was in The Jewel In The Crown, I’ve never had a reaction like it.’
Helen George, meanwhile, who plays midwife Trixie Franklin, was recognised at a particularly opportune moment. ‘If ever I do meet midwives in real life, they always say how impressed they are with the medical side of things,’ Helen says. ‘But when I was pregnant and had to see real midwives myself, no one said anything to me about it until they were taking me to the labour ward when one squealed, “I’ve been wanting to say this the whole time... it really is time for you to call the midwife!”’
Helen’s daughter Wren, now three, is known on set as ‘The Midwife Baby’ because Helen fell for her husband Jack Ashton — who played Trixie’s former love interest, vicar Tom Hereward — when the cast were in South Africa filming the 2016 Christmas special. When she became pregnant, hiding her growing bump was a challenge. ‘I was filming until I was 32 weeks pregnant and there were moments when it was tricky but we worked around it. There was one scene where Trixie was standing behind her dentist boyfriend with her hands covering his eyes because she was taking him to a surprise dinner — that was only because we had to think of new ways to hide my tummy.’
In the show, Trixie has been notoriously unlucky in love as well as battling an alcohol problem, but Helen loves being able to develop the character. ‘I’m glad that she hasn’t been married off yet,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t need to be
dependent on someone. We’re looking at a time where women were beginning to not necessarily aspire to marry, but to have their own careers.’
In contrast, Laura Main’s Shelagh Turner has had quite the journey from quiet nun to midwife, doctor’s wife and mother of four. The slowburning romance between Shelagh — then known as Sister Bernadette — and Dr Turner (played by Heidi Thomas’s husband Stephen McGann)
‘When I was in labour they said call the midwife!’ HELEN GEORGE
has seen the couple overcome some tough challenges over the years. ‘The story came as a surprise to me as I’d signed up to play a nun,’ laughs Laura. ‘The only hint was at the end of series one when the
girls were all going to a dance and Bernadette looked in the mirror with this glance. I thought, “There’s something more to this...” But it was such a slow burn that at the start of series two Steve and I had
to be coached as to what was going on as they subtly flirted while they cleaned their medical instruments.’
This tenth series will feature the 1966 World Cup, problems with the finances at Nonnatus House, a
confusing case with echoes of the thalidomide scandal and a crisis of faith. ‘I’m proud that this show tackles difficult subjects but never manipulates the audience,’ says Judy. ‘We don’t tell the audience what to think, and I think that’s why they keep coming back for more.’
Call The Midwife returns on 18 April at 8pm on BBC1.