Disarmingly honest:Barbara (Charlotte Ritchie),Patsy (Emerald Fennell) and Trixie (Helen George) in Call The Midwife.Credit:Des Willie
This generosity of spirit and unwillingness to condemn are the most endearing traits ofCall the Midwife,based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth,a nurse who sadly died before the first episode was broadcast.
Set at a time when homosexuality and abortion were illegal and the National Health Service was still finding its feet,the series weaves questions of identity,agency and survival into episodes that,without fuss or fanfare,confront the show's staunch midwives with problems like incest,chemical castration,syphilis and sex slavery.
Terrific ensemble cast:left to right,Barbara (Charlotte Ritchie),Trixie (Helen George),Patsy (Emerald Fennell) in Call The Midwife.Credit:Sophie Mutevelian
Yet the darkness of the story lines never slows the brisk pacing or dulls the cheering warmth of the photography. Otherwise,some scenes would be almost unbearable to watch.
As it is,the show is rarely less than touching and often quite devastating. (It also features the most realistic newborns on television,where babies usually arrive looking weirdly alien or,worse,virtually ready for preschool.) Mingling the spiritual and the secular with a deftness that might be unique on television,the stories address moral challenges like prostitution and the contraceptive pill with bracing pragmatism. Sudden swerves into melodrama,like a recent subplot about a nun's beating at the hands of a rogue Russian sailor,are short-lived;the quotidian challenges of the poor and pregnant are enough to guarantee a swift return to narrative equilibrium.
Yet despite provocative writing,a terrific ensemble cast and about 8 million viewers each episode in Britain,the program has mostly been denied the critical respect garnered by that flashier yet infinitely less audacious dive into British history,Downton Abbey. Some of this is undoubtedly because of gender bias,both in the show's makeup and its appeal. With mainly female stars,writers and directors,and conceived and produced by the award-winning playwright Heidi Thomas — the granddaughter of a suffragist —Midwife has feminism hot-wired into its DNA,simultaneously flaunting its soapy credentials and pushing insistently against their assumptions and restrictions.
I wasn't always a believer,originally finding the show,with its sleeves-rolled-up capableness,a little corny and overly idealised. But beneath the cosy cardigans and sensible shoes,the nurse-and-vicar hookups and endless cups of tea,this Sunday-night comfort food has revealed an emotional depth and daring that have won me over. Washed in a delightful soundtrack of crooners and early pop stars (a recent scene,scored to the sexy come-on of April Stevens'Teach Me Tiger,perfectly captures the eroticism of inexperience),the program excels at easily digested grit.