Filming Begins On New Call The Midwife Episodes

Filming has commenced on the sixth series of BBC One drama Call The Midwife. Filming has also started on the show's 2016 Christmas Special.

Written and created by Heidi Thomas, the new series will air on the channel in 2017 and is currently being filmed on location at Chatham dockyard, London's East End, and Call The Midwife's studio base in Chertsey, Surrey. The Christmas Special, meanwhile, will be filmed on location near Cape Town, South Africa.

This year, the festive special will see the show transported to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, after Nonnatus House receives an SOS from a small mission hospital. Understaffed, underfunded, and with a poor water supply, Hope Clinic is faced with closure, but can the medics and midwives make a difference to the people whose lives depend on its work? Away from home and everything familiar, the team are face with challenges, and by the time the mission trip is over, some lives are permanently changed.

Sinead Cusack joins the Christmas Special cast as Dr Myra Fitzsimmons who runs the threatened Hope Clinic. Regular cast currently filming near Cape Town are Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne), Linda Bassett (Nurse Crane), Victoria Yeates (Sister Winifred), Laura Main (Shelagh Turner), Stephen McGann (Dr Turner), Jack Ashton (Tom), Helen George (Trixie), Charlotte Ritchie (Barbara) and Cliff Parisi (Fred).

Following this, production will return to the UK for series six, which will consist of eight episodes. It is now 1962, and the Nonnatus House team remain committed to caring for the people of Poplar, but social revolution in the world is mirrored by change and challenge closer to home as well. As they strive to help mothers and families cope with the demands of childbearing, disability, disease and social prejudice, the medics must make choices and fight battles of their own.

Miranda Hart (Chummy) will make an appearance in the Christmas Special, and will return to Nonnatus House for the series from episode one.

Call The Midwife is made by Neal Street Productions for BBC One.

Pippa Harris, Executive Producer, said: "With our Christmas Special set against the dramatic backdrop of South Africa, and the return of our beloved Chummy to Poplar, series six is shaping up to be our strongest yet. It's a testament to the great skill of Heidi Thomas's writing that the series continues to evolve, whilst maintaining its hugely popular mix of social history, babies, laughter and tears."

Heidi Thomas, creator, writer and executive producer, said: "My passion for the world and characters of Call The Midwife grows stronger with each passing year. Every season brings new stories, new challenges and new triumphs – yet each one feels like a return to a much-loved home, and series six will be no exception. As the team settle back into Poplar after their South African adventure, we'll see them grappling with all the contradictions and opportunities of the early Sixties – the beacon of the pill, the shadow of the Kray twins, the lure of independence and the call to duty. And time and time again, in a age of change and danger, we will be reminded of the simple power of love."

Call The Midwife is created and written by Heidi Thomas and is inspired by the memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth. The executive producers are Pippa Harris and Heidi Thomas. Executive producer for the BBC is Elizabeth Kilgarriff with Ann Tricklebank as producer. Call The Midwife is a Neal Street Production for BBC/PBS.

Image: Courtesy of BBC Media Centre.

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre

(JP)