It's Time To Call the Midwife!

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Its Time To Call the Midwife!

We speak to creator and writer Heidi Thomas along with some of the cast members of the hit show Call the Midwife about what to expect from season six

By Maan Jalal
 maan@khaleejtimes.com

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Published: Sun 22 Jan 2017, 11:26 AM

Last updated: Mon 23 Jan 2017, 7:19 PM

There's nothing like a show that deals with multiple facets of society in an interesting way. A character driven story is what gets us hooked initially but then learning about the past, seeing how a specific time and issue has changed (or perhaps hasn't changed) so much in the last fifty years gives us an interesting perspective on society.

Call the Midwife is one of those shows that has struck a chord with a large amount of people from different backgrounds. The series was created by Heidi Thomas, but is originally based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, a British nurse and musician who wrote a a best-selling trilogy of memoirs about her work as a midwife practising in the poverty-stricken East End of London in the 1950s and 60s.

Starring Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Bryony Han-nah, Laura Main, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Cliff Parisi, Stephen McGann, Ben Caplan, Emerald Fennell, Victoria Yeates, Linda Bassett and Charlotte Ritchie the show is now entering its sixth season.Surpassing the original books by Jennifer Worth, Call the Midwife has gained a massive fan base that were excited to watch the recent Christmas special where the characters travel to assist a struggling clinic in 1961 South Africa during the Apartheid era. The sixth season with start on Tuesday 24 January at 8pm/9pm (KSA/UAE) on BBC First (OSN).

City Times had the pleasure to chat with some of the cast along with creator and writer Heidi Thomas about filming the Christ-mas special, what the new series has in store for us and some of the underlining themes and ideas that make Call the Midwife such a huge success.

HEIDI THOMAS: Creator Screen Writer
Now that you've gone beyond Jennifer Worth's original books, is it hard to think of new stories or do they just come to you all the time?
We ran out of Jennifer Worth stories during series two, and as you know we've just delivered series six. It's amazing. Jennifer's books were mostly used up in the first series. But we constantly examine what we are about, and in series two I started to create new material. I'd go right back into the medical archives. We also have a wonderful archive of oral history which grew purely out of our post bag.
Tell us more.
From very early on in series one, we'd get lots of letters from people saying, my mum was a midwife in Glasgow or my mum was a midwife in Manchester or indeed the East End. We had a lovely researcher who had a particularly good manner with the elderly and she just went and interviewed them all. We are still drawing from those. So now we've got our own oral history archive which I see very much as being in the spirit of Jennifer Worth's work.
Did you ever imagine the show would run for so many years?
No. We always assumed it might just be a one off, like six beautiful episodes and a real treat. You always make shows with great hope, but I think one of the reasons we have achieved a kind of longevity is we have never assumed we will go on for decades. I'm always petrified when a new show launches, and the show runner says "It could go on for ten years." I never think that because with every series you do, you literally spread the show out on a table like a patient, you take its pulse and you say, "How are you feeling, Call the Midwife? What can we change, what can we do better, what was brilliant, what really scored with our audience, perhaps in an unexpected way?"
What effect has Call the Midwife had around the world?
It's in 197 territories now. There is this universal appeal, and I think one of the things that has been really striking about the show on an international level is its ability to create dialogue and therefore empower people to create change.
Can you give us an example?
I was invited to speak at a conference that was taking place in London a few years ago. As a result, I was asked if I would go out to Pakistan where they were developing a heath drama which was designed to deliver health education to women in remote Pakistani communities. Women there are traditionally tended by their female relatives in labour and they are only taken to hospital when they are almost un-savable, with a massive haemorrhage or an obstructed labour. So we sent them our consultant midwife and some of our props. And now in Pakistan they have created this brilliant series, which in their language means "swimming with the tide".
What is it about?
It is about midwifes on bicycles who go round to people's homes in rural Pakistan delivering midwifery care. It has actually changed outcomes. So we helped them to deliver that health education and it gets millions and millions of viewers. It was inspired by Call the Midwife and it delivers its message in a soap format. When I think that we've done that, it's incredible.
Were you quite disappointed not to be able to go out to South Africa for this year's Christmas special?
Not really because my work is at my desk, and the busier I am, the smaller my world becomes. I mean it literally shrinks to the desk. A pair of slippers and a salad box when I'm working on the series. I get bits of lettuce between my keyboard. I love to spend time on the set, but generally I'm very seldom there because if I'm on set, I'm having a day off and I just don't take days off. It's the way it works.


HELEN GEORGE

Do you do a lot of research into the medical procedures?
Yes. I really enjoyed the technical side of things. It is wonderful having the freedom to do such fantastic scenes. When you get to do the technical stuff, you're told what to do because it has to be accurate. It is something that I didn't really know that much about, so watching the YouTube clips and really getting to grips with the techniques is very helpful. I think the physicality of it is interesting. We are always so sore by the end of the first day filming because we've filmed so many times and our shoulders ache. God, what do real midwifes go through with their bodies?
Does the show shine a light into some dark corners of our history?
Yes. I think it's an eye opener to modern audiences that in the East End in Call the Midwife we have a horizon which is filled with poverty stricken families, but yet, still in this day and age, 50 or 60 years later we are still seeing food banks and actually not that much has changed. And in South Africa we were filming in townships that actually the crew had to change very sparingly to make the accurate to 1962. They literally took the TVs out, but that was it. Because it is still pretty much the same.
Does that carry on throughout the series?
Yes. I hope that this is a bit of an eye opener as well, as we continue with the series as well because it's not progressing the way that it should. You feel it when you speak to people in South Africa, too. It has carried on through generations there. The hurt and the pain is just ingrained in society. It isn't being bled out, it's being bled through generations.
Does Trixie look to be more ahead of the times?
I think she has always in terms of popular culture, fashion, music, the latest heart throb, she's always sort of fascinated by that. and there is a fear of missing out on the latest thing that she has. But it is nice for my character that there is also a serious thread to her being woven into the story. There is a medical side that we see in her more and more involved in as well.
Does Call the Midwife have a feminist message?
Yes. All the female characters have a very strong voice, and what Heidi is so good at doing is opening up the argument. Because we have nuns in the cast and we have various different ages and cultural backgrounds, all sides of the arguments are always brought out around the dinner table. It's like 12 Angry Men! And so you get to hear all the arguments, and women can hopefully gather their own opinions from this show.
 
VICTORIA YEATES
Does going to South Africa change your character?
Yes. When she joined the nunnery, Sister Winifred had never been to the East End and she found all that shocking. From my experience, when you go and see that kind of poverty in South Africa, I think that something deepens within you. So going there helps Sister Winifred grow up more. Also she gets a lot more confidence, because she's been allowed to do more essentially. She has been given more responsibility, and so she's just different because of that. I think when she comes back, she just has a deeper feeling within her.
Can you give us an example from the new series of how things are beginning to change in 1960's society?
There's one storyline about domestic abuse in this series. It deals with the rights of women to have custody over their children after a divorce. Regardless of the situation, in the 60s the man held the power to have custody - that was just an automatic right for a man. But those things that we just take for granted now are beginning to change in the 60s.
What is it like wearing the habit and the wimple?
It is really interesting playing a nun. It's very restrictive which is really good to use for your character. It's uncomfortable, but pretty freeing as well because you don't have to worry about your weight or how you look. Sir John Gielgud always said that you put on different shoes for different people, so your costume completely changes everything about how you move.
For instance?
You can't touch your hair or your face really or do anything massively physical while you're acting. That is quite a challenge, because you have to stand still and your face is framed so every movement is bigger on your face. So it's like wimple acting! And we all go deaf as well when we've got them on. In my first episode, I couldn't hear anything. I was cupping my hand to my ear, and the director said, "You look a bit like an old lady." And I replied, "What, dear? Hello?"
Do fans recognise you without the wimple?
Yes, I do get recognised when I'm out. I get a weird look from people, and then they tentatively come up. It's my big smile that's a bit of a giveaway. But because of the wimple, I wouldn't be recognised as much as some of the other actors, I'm sure.


STEPHEN MCGANN

Does the show have a feminist point to make?
Yes. At no time are the women in Call the Midwife fighting over a man. Think about that for a second. The women simply co-operate with each other. Why is that such an alien concept? The drama also features a marriage that co-operates and isn't about secrets and lies and betrayal.
What's it like working in a predominantly female cast? Does it make a difference to the atmosphere?
The answer is always the same. I've worked in so many casts where there has been a token woman, and the atmosphere is exactly the same. It's absolutely brilliant. What's amazing is that we should be talking about this in 2016. When we started people used to say to us, "What's it like with all of that birth stuff?", and the three guys involved were actually dads. So what we were doing was a scene about the birth room - which we three boys had been in. So it's part of our experience, too. It's not just women. Everyone's done birth, for heaven's sake!
Do you all get on?
Yes. All the actors just brilliant, and I don't think it's any accident that we are all very close. We are a great community. There is something wonderfully collegiate about the production. There's such a great mix in there, a good healthy amount of men and women on the production. That is unusual and it is fantastic to work with.
What are the advantages of a long-running series?
One of the great privileges of being a long run is the slow burn. You can make these characters tick. So when Trixie achieves something, you know all about her past, the alcoholism, the fears - all of that is there. Why? Because we've had all these series to find out. It's the same in Patrick and Shelagh's marriage. It's an incredible privilege to be able to go back and revisit and then build on those stepping stones.
CHARLOTTE RITCHIE

How did you find it working in South Africa?
It was really great because actually the number of people we took out to South Africa was quite small. So the cast and a few key heads of departments came from the UK, but all the other actors, except for Sinead Cusack, were from South Africa. Also the crew were all South Africans. So it was really nice to just get a feeling of another crew working.
Tell us more.
The Christmas special looks so beautiful. It feels so far away from the UK, and that's partly also because it was just a completely different team of people. We also worked with people from all over Cape Town, which was really great. So all the supporting artists were from different townships and different villages, and it was just really good to meet them.
That's an unusual opportunity, isn't it?
Yes. That is very rare. If you went on holiday somewhere, you would not necessarily talk to people who live there. You'd just talk to whoever you went with. But it was really cool to actually live there basically for a month and get a real feel for the country.
LINDA BASSETT

What was filming in South Africa like?
It was wonderful. Watching it again, all the memories come back. I couldn't stop myself thinking quite a lot, which of course is usual with Call the Midwife. Even when you're in it, you still cry at everyone else's stories! I do find South Africa a very moving country because of what it's been through and because of the contrast between that and how phenomenally beautiful it is. It's like it's a paradise mankind turned into hell. Of course, now it is a free country, but we were filming a story set in 1962, when apartheid was still its nasty self. So it was very full experience. It was lovely working with a new set of actors.
Why does progressing through the years work so well on Call the Midwife?
It's to do with having integrity of writing. Some series go on and on, but you don't really notice the years changing because they want to be fixed. I'm not naming any names, but the same thing gets mined over and over again. But Heidi is not doing that, so Call the Midwife is growing and progressing, and that's to do with the writer and guest writers. Heidi oversees all that. That's what makes it good.
CLIFF PARISI
It looked very moving, that scene where you were helping with a birth in the veldt. What was it like filming that scene?
I was genuinely scared of hyenas popping up. I felt, "This is the worst place to have a child, in the middle of the sand with no cover - anything could pop up!" It was genuinely quite scary. But luckily enough, it wasn't a real baby, so we were alright!  
Is it interesting to see the times changing as you move through the years and into a different series?
Absolutely. This series is set in 1962, when I'd have been two years old. So it's funny to look at some of those outfits and those prams and stuff that I can remember. Also, the 60s were only 15 years after the war. There had been two world wars quite close to each other and not a lot really happened in society during that period of time. Then all of a sudden this massive leap started to happen afterwards.
 
JACK ASHTON
Did the trip to South Africa change you as people?
Yes. Who we were before we went and who we were when we got back - there is a real difference. It was a really special trip. When we do Midwife in London, we come from home, we do our bits and we go home. We very rarely stay away. But having five weeks in South Africa, all together in the same hotel, we were much closer. All in the same room - BBC budget - in bunk beds or filing cabinets! But they did allow us out to socialise for one hour an evening. We came back very much closer than when we left. I think that can only help the show as well because there is just a relaxedness about all of us.
What is changing during the 1960s?
In the Christmas special, the music has just leapt forward. Even in six months, they started to get the funkier beats. It's like we've gone from the ballads of the 50s, early 60s, and now we sort of navigating towards Carole King territory. The Beatles are just on the horizon.



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