Call the Midwife
2012
Original language: English
- drama
The story
Drama following the lives of a group of midwives working in the poverty-stricken East End of London during the 1950s, based on the best-selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth.
What it’s like
Warm, soft-focus postwar London: rain-slicked cobbles, bicycles, steamy kitchens and tea trays, with the Poplar streets rendered in muted greys and washed-out pastels that give way to lamplit interiors and pale morning light through sash windows. The camera tends to settle in unhurried wide shots of ordinary rooms and linger on faces, and the score is gentle strings and piano with bells from the convent chapel marking the day. Its vibe is nostalgic and tender, with a tough undercurrent of working-class hardship that never tips into grim spectacle. The pace is episodic and easy: each hour-long episode holds a few related cases, births and lost pregnancies, and a slow season of friendships and small community kindnesses, so it suits a rainy Sunday, a comfort rewatch, or something to half-watch over tea. Intensity is moderate: childbirth is shown frankly, with blood and strain but no gore, some illness and deaths of babies and older patients, occasional domestic cruelty and poverty, and very little violence. Sexual content is mild and mostly implied. It is for viewers who want a humane, period-rich drama that is comforting without being saccharine.
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