Call the Midwife Christmas Special- Guest Post by Big Sister

Below is a special guest post by my Big Sister, M.F. (minor spoilers below) If you haven't yet seen this, go to www.pbs.org/programs/call-the-midwife. Or just go ahead and read this lovely post anyway. It will only make you want to see it even more!

*********************************************************************************

We got an extra present in our Christmas stockings this week to relieve the doldrums of the post-Christmas letdown – the Call the Midwife Christmas Special which aired tonight on PBS here in North America.  And, as the special just aired on Christmas Day in Britain, I would say that we were rewarded for being extra good this year, by getting it here only 5 days after!  I think that may be a record for a British televised costume drama … 

This Special was, again, set in 1950s Poplar (a neighbourhood in the East End of London near the docks) where the nuns and nurses of Nonnatus House work diligently delivering the endless stream of babies popping out of working class mothers of the area.  My comment when I saw the first series of Call the Midwife was:
“Never mind the automobile or the Internet … birth control was the greatest invention of the 20^th century!”

There are two main storylines at work in the Christmas Special – a teenage pregnancy/infant abandonment and the desperate plight of an elderly survivor of the workhouse system – all interlaced with the background story of Nurse Chummy (Miranda Hart) and the Cub Scout pack (plus many other children) putting on the Nativity Play.

In the first story, the chubby teenaged Lynette gives birth alone in the cold basement of an abandoned factory, and then leaves her son on the steps of Nonnatus House for the nuns to find.  Her fear of telling her parents and the subsequent urgent search for the birth mother (due to health complications) make for some gripping drama in the midst of the usual Christmas preparations.

In the second story, elderly ragged Mrs. Jenkins (Sheila Reid) is the woman who spent 30 years in the workhouse (until it closed in 1935 – lest we think that these were only a feature of the Victorian era) and whose five children were separated from her and subsequently “failed to thrive”.   I’m sure that my sister, Jenny, was pleased to see that the mystery of the children's fate was solved by Nurse Lee (Jessica Raine) by delving into the records of the workhouse and the birth and death records of the parish to find where they were buried – genealogy is another of her pursuits.

One of the best scenes comes when Nurse Lee and Sister Evangelina (Pam Ferris) visit Mrs. Jenkins to do some primary health care (like trying to take her vital signs and giving her a bath) – the patient is very resistant until Sister Evangelina breaks the ice by breaking wind!  “Where e’er you be, let your wind go free …” says Sister Evangelina and then offers to fart in a different musical key!  Hilarious, and completely unexpected.  The scene then ends with the two health care workers gently disrobing Mrs. Jenkins and giving her a bath and gently washing her hands and back to the strains of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” – this showed the normally gruff Sister Evangelina in a much kinder light than usual and I admit that I shed a tear or two.

Altogether, the stories all plaited together nicely and resolved with a warm Christmas glow.  Perfect!

Big Sister (helping out with the blogging over the holidays!)

Call The Midwife- PBS this Sunday Sept 30!

Call The Midwife

If you are patiently awaiting the return of Downton Abbey, you have a real treat in store. Call The Midwife is a BBC miniseries based on the best selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth. I can't talk this one up enough! I love it!!! The stories of young midwives delivering babies in the East End of London in the 1950s is moving and funny and will have you coming back for all 5 episodes. Sunday night on PBS is going to be wonderful this fall!

Jessica Raine plays Jenny Lee, a young woman from the wealthy countryside of England who has trained as a nurse and midwife and is posted to the rough East End of London. The series follows her and her fellow midwives as they work in one of the poorest parts of London, still reeling from the bombings of WWII.

Judy Parfitt, Pam Ferris, Jenny Agutter and Laura Main as the nuns

Instead of the hospital Jenny Lee is expecting, she finds herself posted to a convent (Nonnatus House) with some fairly unconventional nuns. Judy Parfitt (Mrs. Clennam from Little Dorrit) and Jenny Agutter (Idina Hatton from The Buccaneers) are particularly wonderful as the nuns overseeing and teaching the young midwives. Judy Parfitt plays the adorable Sister Monica Joan who has a bit of dementia and is only occasionally lucid. Hilarious and touching at the same time. Jenny Agutter is Sister Julienne, the real heart of the operation and someone for the young midwives to look up to.

Helen George, Miranda Hart, Jessica Raine and Bryony Hannah

Long before her memoirs were filmed, author of the book Jennifer Worth asked Miranda Hart to play Chummy Browne, the six foot tall ungainly, clumsy midwife featured in the stories. If you haven't seen comedienne Miranda Hart before, you will love her and you will start to look for her in other things. She doesn't appear until episode 2 so stay tuned.

If I have any readers in the UK, Australia, New Zealand or Europe who have already seen this, please comment below and tell us what you thought of it. Personally, I cannot wait!

P.S. As PBS says, check local listings. Some of the stations are starting this Sunday Sept 30 at 8pm but my local station in Buffalo has it listed as starting the week after (Sunday Oct. 7 at 8 pm)

The Buccaneers- 1995

The Buccaneers 1995

The Buccaneers is a BBC miniseries based on Edith Wharton's last, unfinished novel. I count it as one of my favourite miniseries in my DVD collection. After perusing reviews on both Amazon and IMDb, apparently most viewers agree with me but a significant number do not. If you have not yet seen this miniseries, I will try to help you decide whether you will love it or whether you should skip this one.

Laura Testvalley and Nan St. George in The Buccaneers

The story, adapted from Edith Wharton's novel, follows four spirited girls from the Americas, ostracized by New York high society as nouveau riche, who decide to venture to London for “the season” to improve their chances of acceptance and marriage when they get back to America.  What happens, of course, is that they all end up making matches in England and mayhem ensues...

Carla Gugino as Annabelle St. George (Nan) in The Buccaneers

Let's just say for starters that this is NOT Jane Austen.  Although the girls start out as fresh naive teenagers out to conquer the English aristocracy, what they encounter when they cross the pond comes as a bit of a shock to them. Rather in the manner of Lady Diana, these girls thought they were marrying for love, and all but one of them found out too late that it wasn't that simple.

The Buccaneers in front of Castle Howard (or Longlands, the seat of the Duke of Trevennick)

So prepare yourself for a Victorian soap opera (and I love a good melodrama I must say) including adultery, homosexuality, syphilis, domestic violence and all manner of bad behavior.  This story is a pretty good taste of what was actually happening in England in the late Victorian age, portraying marriages of convenience with American money meeting English titles and estates.  Some of these marriages ended happily but many did not and there was no shortage of scandal.  If you are interested in the history of this time period, the marriages of Consuelo Vanderbilt/Duke of Marlborough and Jenny Jerome/Randolph Churchill were the models for Edith Wharton's characters.

The Duke and Duchess of Trevennick- The Buccaneers

So if you like your period drama a bit less gritty, then give this one a pass. If you are interested in how many of the upper classes on both sides of the Atlantic really lived in the Victorian era, then you will be transfixed. Plus the scenery and the costumes are heavenly. Castle Howard is used for the country home of the Duke and Duchess of Trevennick and it looks like they had full use of the house when filming.

Nan and Guy- The Buccaneers

As a personal note, I gave this miniseries to my sister a year ago and she still has yet to watch the entire thing. So this is really an appeal to her to watch it, or pass it on to one of her period drama loving friends who will adore it as I do! Perhaps when she watches it she will leave a comment below to tell my readers how she liked it?

By the by, does not Greg Wise look quite heavenly in the white tie and tails and the magnificent mustachio above? (Michael Kitchen is pretty easy on the eyes as his father too if you like your men a little older). And if you can't picture yourself swishing around in one of those amazing dresses, then you are on the wrong blog!

P.S. If you would like to watch this online (although it is well worth owning), the website Enchanted Serenity of Period Films has a list of period dramas online here and it's under YouTube Playlist 1. The whole website is a treasure trove of period drama and although Cheryl is no longer updating it, she's keeping it online for us. Thanks Cheryl!