What is Midwife going to deliver?
CALL the Midwife returned on Sunday with the tale of a young woman forced to have her womb removed after a horribly botched abortion.
And the show’s 10 million viewers will have plenty more tear-jerking stories and challenging subjects to grapple with over the next seven weeks of the eighth series.
As well as many medical firsts, the nuns and nurses of Nonnatus House in 1964, also face the plentiful emotional and social problems affecting communities in Sisters Frances & Hilda flank Mildred (Miriam Margoyles) Poplar, East London. The stories, often heart-breaking but always painstakingly researched, are historically accurate and sensitively told. Have your tissues ready... ■ Call the Midwife, BBC1, Sundays, 8pm. Fenella Woolgar plays Sister Hilda, who is a bit bossy but has the grace to realise when she’s overstepped the mark.
She says: “It was quite weird. I’ve had children [but] with the birthing scenes, it is quite intimidating because most of the time they use the newborn [not] the prosthetic.
“They are long days and they are incredibly concentrated and having the real mum and dad there can be stressful.”
Ella Bruccoleri plays young and naive Sister Frances who finds the 60s quite tough. “She definitely struggles to fit in, that becomes more and more apparent” Ella says.
“At the Mother House she had other young nuns and postulants around her but she doesn’t have that here .”
Jenny Agutter, who plays the much-loved lead nun, Sister Julienne, say: “What is wonderful about that young nun is that she comes with such joy and enthusiasm but it’s also a young woman at a period when so many young women are embracing something completely different.” Mini skirts were all the rage Trixie (Helen George) in red dress The 60s have really started to swing and hemlines in Poplar have shot up. Fashion is a big part of the new series for the young nurses and glamorous Trixie Franklin (Helen George) is at the forefront.
Helen says: “Trixie has come back from Italy fully healed and with a new wardrobe. Which is just delightful! “This series all the girls are getting really amazing costumes. We’ve got a great new costume designer (Claire Lynch) and really interesting looks. I wear this hat modelled on the black leather cap John
Lennon wore.”
But vintage footwear was not such fun.
“Feet were so tiny in the 60s, none of the shoes bloody fit!
We took them off a lot, ” laughs
Helen. One Foot in the Grave’s Annette Crosbie guest stars in episode two as a woman who drove ambulances during the war and who went on hunger strike to fight for women’s right to vote.
She plays elderly and infirm Miss Millgrove, a lonely hoarder suffering with leg ulcers, who has left the neighbours horrified by “her filth”. She is determined to stay in her own house rather OAP Miss Millgrove than move to a nursing home, even resorting to throwing parcels of her own excrement at the police as they try to force her out. The scared old woman asks: “What will become of me? I know nowhere else.”
Warm-hearted Lucille is touched by her plight. “A woman of substance can live anywhere,” she tells her. “And you, Miss Millgrove, are a woman of substance.”