From Nurse Trixie (Helen George) to Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter), Call the Midwife is as loved for its characters as it is for its heart-warming – and often tear-jerking – storylines. And they’re not just loved by those of us watching the show.
Call the Midwife star Stephen McGann, who plays Dr Turner, has revealed that there’s one character in particular that he’d love to see return to the programme.
“If I had to see anyone again, it would be the wonderful Charlotte Ritchie,” he told us.
“She’s just so wonderful to work with and I miss her horribly. But she’s doing really well – we all love her and she’s always family,” he added.
A fan favourite, Charlotte joined the cast as Nurse Barbara Gilbert in 2015, before her departure in March 2018, when her character passed away with her husband, Tom, and close friend, Phyllis, by her side.
“I knew it was going to happen and I still howled like a child, which feels really weird,” she said of the scene.
“But it was just everything, it was saying goodbye to the show. It was done beautifully and I feel really glad and really proud that I got to say goodbye in that way.”
The beloved drama was the most-watched show on Christmas Day last year and will soon return with a brand-new Christmas special, before series nine kicks in early 2020.
Opening with the funeral of Winston Churchill in January 1965, series nine will see Nonnatus House enter a bold and innovative era, in which the midwives face unexpected challenges as the population shifts, rules change, and old diseases come back to haunt them.
Alongside the joy of birth, they're faced with cases including diphtheria, drug abuse, cancer, tuberculosis, and fistula. Meanwhile, the very fabric of their lives is jeopardised when Nonnatus itself comes under threat of demolition.
Creator, writer and executive producer, Heidi Thomas, said, “After a magical Christmas experience in the Hebrides featuring wild seas, stormy skies and some very disobedient sheep, we return to the harsher reality of city life in 1965. Society is changing fast and in series nine we will see Nonnatus House shaken to its foundations.”
2020 can't come any sooner.
Here's everything you need to know about Call The Midwife season 9.
Call The Midwife airs on BBC One.
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