Call the Midwife ''Call the Midwife'' is a BBC period drama series about a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the late 1950s and 1960s. The principal cast of the show has included Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Bryony Hanna ...

'' is a British

period drama A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romance film, romances, adventure f ...

television series based on the best-selling memoirs of former nurse

Jennifer Worth Jennifer Louise Worth RN RM (; 25 September 1935 – 31 May 2011) was a British memoirist. She wrote a best-selling trilogy about her work as a nurse and midwife practising in the poverty-stricken East End of London in the 1950s: ''Call the M ...

, who died shortly before the first episode was broadcast. It is set in the 1950s and 1960s and for the first three series centred primarily on Jenny Lee (

Jessica Raine Jessica Raine (born Jessica Helen Lloyd; 20 May 1982) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Jenny Lee in the television series ''Call the Midwife'' (2012–2014) and Verity Lambert in the television film ''An Adventure in Sp ...

), based on the real Worth. In the first episode, set in 1957, she begins a new job as a midwife at a nursing convent in the deprived Poplar district of east London. The programme's

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to ...

has also included

Jenny Agutter Jennifer Ann Agutter (born 20 December 1952) is a British actress. She began her career as a child actress in 1964, appearing in ''East of Sudan'', '' Star!'', and two adaptations of ''The Railway Children''—the BBC's 1968 television serial ...

Pam Ferris Pamela Ferris (born 11 May 1948) is a Welsh actress. She has starred in numerous British television series, including ''Connie'' (1985), '' The Darling Buds of May'' (1991–1993), '' Where the Heart Is'' (1997–2000), ''Rosemary & Thyme'' ...

Judy Parfitt Judy Catherine Claire Parfitt (born 7 November 1935) is an English theatre, film and television actress. She made her film debut in a minor supporting part in ''Information Received'' (1961), followed by supporting role in the BBC television se ...

Laura Main Laura Main (born 8 March 1981) is a Scottish actress known for her role as Sister Bernadette (later Dr. Turner's wife Shelagh Turner) in the BBC One drama series ''Call the Midwife''. Early life and education Laura Main was born in Aberdeen. H ...

Miranda Hart Miranda Katherine Hart Dyke (born 14 December 1972) is an English actress and writer. Following drama training at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, Hart began writing material for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and making appearances in va ...

Helen George Helen Elizabeth George (born 19 June 1984) is an English actress, best known for playing Trixie Franklin on the BBC drama series ''Call the Midwife''. In 2015, she participated in the thirteenth series of BBC One's '' Strictly Come Dancing''; ...

Bryony Hannah Bryony Hannah (born 1984) is a British actress, best known as Cynthia Miller in BBC One's ''Call the Midwife''. Personal life The daughter of a teacher and a retired Royal Navy lieutenant-commander, Hannah comes from Portsmouth, and after leavin ...

Charlotte Ritchie Charlotte Anne Ritchie (born 29 August 1989) is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Alison in ''Ghosts'', Oregon in Channel 4 comedy '' Fresh Meat'', Hannah in ''Siblings'', Alison in ''Dead Pixels'', Barbara Gilbert ...

Linda Bassett Linda Bassett (born 4 February 1950) is an English actress. Her television credits include Victoria Wood's ''Dinnerladies (TV series), dinnerladies'' (1999), ''Lark Rise to Candleford (TV series), Lark Rise to Candleford'' (2008–11), ''Grandma' ...

and

Emerald Fennell Emerald Lilly Fennell (; born 1 October 1985) is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and nomination ...

Vanessa Redgrave Dame Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over seven decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Television Award, two ...

delivers framing voiceovers in the role of "mature Jenny", and continues to do so even after the younger version of the character was written out of the series. The idea of adapting Worth's books for television was initially dismissed by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, but revived after Danny Cohen took over the post of

Controller Controller may refer to: Occupations * Controller or financial controller, or in government accounting comptroller, a senior accounting position * Controller, someone who performs agent handling in espionage * Air traffic controller, a person ...

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

. A full series was commissioned in 2011 and writer

Heidi Thomas Heidi Thomas (born 13 August 1962) is an English screenwriter and playwright. Career After reading English at Liverpool University, Thomas gained national attention when her play, ''Shamrocks And Crocodiles'', won the John Whiting Award in 1 ...

adapted Worth's books for the screen. The first episode was broadcast on 15 January 2012 and the initial series of six episodes drew positive reviews and large viewing figures, said by the BBC to be the highest audiences achieved by a new drama series on BBC One since the corporation's current method of measuring audiences began in 2001. Following the second episode, the BBC announced that a second series, expanded from six to eight episodes, had been commissioned. In September 2012 the programme won the Best New Drama award and Hart was named Best Actress at the ''

TV Choice ''TV Choice'' is a British weekly TV listings magazine published by H. Bauer Publishing, the UK subsidiary of family-run German company Bauer Media Group. The series has also achieved success outside the UK. In the United States, the first series' transmission on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

in the autumn of 2012 drew an average audience of three million viewers. This figure was 50% higher than the network's overall primetime average audience for the 2011–12 television season. In February 2023, the BBC renewed the series through to a fifteenth series, keeping the show on the air until at least 2026.

Series overview

Episodes

Series 1 (2012)

Series 2 (2013)

Series 3 (2014)

Series 4 (2015)

Series 5 (2016)

Series 6 (2017)

Series 7 (2018)

Series 8 (2019)

Series 9 (2020)

Series 10 (2021)

Series 11 (2022)

Series 12 (2023)

References