Call the Midwife, series 9 episode 1 review: despite diphtheria and the death of Churchill, this is still comfort TV
The year is 1965 in Call the Midwife (BBC One) and we know this because Winston Churchill has just died. Some of the characters care deeply about Churchill’s death – Fred (Cliff Parisi) is getting out his medals and Violet (Annabelle Apsion) is dusting off her “artificial beaver” to wear as the cortège passes by. But the midwives of Nonnatus House don’t pay too much attention, because they know mention of Churchill’s death is just an establishing device by the writers to let us know that series nine is entering a new era.
The nunnery is under threat from the council, who want to demolish it as part of their slum clearance. But otherwise the elements that viewers love about this show are unchanged. The midwives are either of the sweet-and-kind or gruff-but-kind variety. The newborn babies are scrumptious. Jenny Agutter is still in it. There is a reason why this drama has run for nine series and attracts viewing figures high enough to merit a Christmas special each year: it leaves you feeling that everything is right with the world.
This episode featured a baby found abandoned in a bin, and a pregnant woman and her son living in a homeless shelter. The pregnant woman told her son that tomorrow would be a happy day, which by the rules of television drama means that tomorrow will be a life-threatening disaster. Sure enough, she went into labour while her boy nearly died of diphtheria. All was so well with the world that there was time for Trixie to have a sub-plot about hosiery and Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) to break off from his expositionary speeches and accidentally let his daughter’s pet rabbit get knocked up.
By the end of the episode, though, the boy had recovered enough to pass his 11+ with flying colours. The abandoned baby was reunited with her mother, who had found the courage to sack off the dodgy priest who got her pregnant. Everything was simpler then, Call the Midwife tells us as we escape into the past for an hour. Whichever way you look at it, the show is the warmest of comfort blankets.