Home TV News Filming Begins On ‘Call The Midwife’ Season 9

Filming Begins On ‘Call The Midwife’ Season 9

by Dave Elliott

Filming Begins On ‘Call The Midwife’ Season 9

After completion of this years Christmas Special, Neal Street Productions has announced filming has begun for the 9th Season of award-winning drama series, Call The Midwife, which returns to BBC One in 2020.

Created and written by Heidi Thomas, the upcoming series of ‘Call The Midwife’ follows a triumphant 8th series which averaged nine million viewers per episode. The series explored many areas of medical and social history, including the impact of disability, adoption, abortion, cot death, Intersex representation, cervical smear tests and Sickle cell disease (which prompted a 46% increase of new blood donors registering). This 9th Season will uphold the show’s established reputation of compelling, sensitive and relevant storylines, with a 10th and 11th Seasons already commissioned, keeping the show on air until 2022.

This year’s Christmas special will see the team take their work to the Outer Hebrides. Led by Mother Mildred, they embark on a trip to the remote yet idyllic Scottish island, where residents have a desperate need for nurses and midwives. Exposed to the elements, they operate in bleak conditions with limited access to water and electricity to help their patients, just in time to reconvene in Poplar for Christmas.

Opening with the funeral of Winston Churchill in January 1965, series nine then continues with Nonnatus House entering a bold and innovative era. As the tower blocks multiply, and a new East End rises from the ashes of the old, society becomes more prosperous, but more complex. Our familiar team of medics and midwives face unexpected challenges as the population shifts, rules change, and old diseases come back to haunt them. Alongside the joy and optimism of birth, they must cope with cases including diphtheria, drug abuse, cancer, tuberculosis, and fistula. Meanwhile, their own experiences are fuelled by love, loss, and doubt – and the very fabric of their lives is jeopardised when Nonnatus itself comes under threat of demolition.

“After an exciting journey to the Outer Hebrides for this year’s Christmas Special, it’s wonderful to be back in Poplar watching the cast and crew craft another powerful series, based on Heidi Thomas’s magnificent scripts,” commented Dame Pippa Harris, Executive Producer. “As we move into the mid-1960s the Nonnatus team face challenging new medical and social changes, with their customary winning combination of steely determination, empathy and love.”

The Season 9 cast includes Miriam Margolyes (Mother Mildred), Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne), Linda Bassett (Nurse Crane), Judy Parfitt (Sister Monica Joan), Fenella Woolgar (Sister Hilda), Ella Bruccoleri (Sister Frances), Helen George (Trixie), Laura Main (Shelagh Turner), Jennifer Kirby (Valerie), Leonie Elliott (Lucille), Stephen McGann (Dr Turner), Cliff Parisi (Fred), Annabelle Apsion (Violet), Georgie Glen (Miss Higgins), Max Macmillan (Timothy), Trevor Cooper (Sgt Woolf) and Daniel Laurie (Reggie).

“Call the Midwife really is such a special show, which consistently rewards us with challenging and compassionate stories that relate to modern audiences in all their diversity of experience,” adds Mona Qureshi, Commissioning Editor at BBC. “We are thrilled to be filming once again with the beloved team of midwives and nuns from Nonnatus House. Our audiences are in for another treat with the Christmas special and new series.”

‘Call the Midwife’ is created and written by Heidi Thomas, Executive Producers are Pippa Harris, Heidi Thomas and Ann Tricklebank. Executive Producer for the BBC is Mona Qureshi with Ann Tricklebank as Producer. The Christmas special and episode one will be directed by Syd Macartney (‘Last Tango in Halifax’, ‘The Syndicate’, ‘A Love Divided’). ‘Call the Midwife’ is a Neal Street Production for BBC/PBS.

Call The Midwife‘ returns Christmas 2019 with a special followed by the full 9th Season in 2020.

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