BBC WORLDWIDE AND PBS ANNOUNCE CALL THE MIDWIFE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL AND SEASON 7 FILMING
Neal Street Productions' Smash British Series Continues to Be a Hit With PBS Viewers
Leonie Elliott Joins Regular Cast as Midwife Lucille
Anita Dobson Guest Stars in Christmas Special
ARLINGTON, VA; MAY 31, 2017 -PBS announced today that the popular Christmas special and a seventh season of the critically acclaimed BBC drama CALL THE MIDWIFE will return to PBS.
The CALL THE MIDWIFE HOLIDAY SPECIAL will air in late 2017 and the seventh season will air in the spring of 2018.
Joining the cast in Season 7 is Leonie Elliott (Wondrous Oblivion, Danny and the Human Zoo, Black Mirror ), who plays Nurse Lucille Anderson, the first West Indian midwife to be featured as a regular character in the series. Elegant, funny and clever, Nurse Lucille is swift to settle in and brings a fresh new energy to life at Nonnatus House. Through her eyes, viewers explore the experiences of Caribbean nurses who went to London in the 1960s to support the growing Nonnatus House.
Written by Heidi Thomas, the Christmas special opens with Poplar under a thick blanket of snow, as the midwives face the challenge of the coldest winter for 300 years. The winter of 1963 saw temperatures plunge to a record low and the whole country brought to a standstill due to the severe weather. Battling snow, ice, power cuts and frozen pipes, the midwives strive to provide the best possible care for their patients. Valerie helps a young couple, newly arrived in London, who experience a traumatic birth, and Sister Julienne strives to reunite a family torn apart by a tormenting father. Anita Dobson ( EastEnders, Doctors ) guest stars as Mabel.
Season 7 begins with the nuns and nurses being tested as they have never been before, both personally and professionally. All around them they see the old East End vanishing, as slum clearances make way for bold new tower blocks to accommodate expanding communities. Their work brings them into contact with a wide range of challenges, from leprosy, tokophobia and stroke, to Huntington's chorea, cataracts and unmarried mothers. Trixie's romance with Christopher continues to develop, while Tom and Barbara enjoy life as a married couple. Nurse Crane finds her authority questioned from an unexpected quarter and Sister Monica Joan is forced to accept her failing faculties. Life for the Turners is turned upside down when Shelagh decides to employ an au pair.
CALL THE MIDWIFE continues to delight viewers in both the UK and the U.S. with charming storylines and loveable characters, said Beth Hoppe, Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming, PBS. We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with our BBC and Neal Street partners as we bring the midwives back this December and embark on a seventh season together.
We can't wait to introduce the audience to our new midwife, Lucille, played by the hugely talented and captivating Leonie Elliott, said Dame Pippa Harris, executive producer for Neal Street Productions. From her first audition, Leonie managed to embody the essence of this elegant, intelligent, witty character, who Heidi Thomas has created with her customary skill. Lucille is a fantastic addition to the Nonnatus House team and we know she will be warmly welcomed by the nuns and midwives.
CALL THE MIDWIFE stars Jenny Agutter ( The Railway Children, Spooks ) as Sister Julienne, Linda Bassett ( East Is East, Lark Rise to Candleford ) as Nurse Phyllis Crane, Judy Parfitt ( Little Dorrit, Girl With a Pearl Earring), who was nominated for a 2013 Satellite Award for her work as Sister Monica Joan, Helen George ( Hollyoaks, Doctors ) as Trixie Franklin, Laura Main ( Monarch of the Glen ) as Shelagh Turner, Charlotte Ritchie ( Life of Riley, Fresh Meat ) as Nurse Barbara Gilbert, Victoria Yeates ( Holby City ) as Sister Winifred, Jennifer Kirby ( Holby City ) as Nurse Valerie Dyer, Stephen McGann ( Emmerdale ) as Dr. Patrick Turner, Jack Ashton ( Endeavour, Of Mary ) as Tom Hereward, Cliff Parisi ( EastEnders ) as Fred, Annabelle Apsion ( Shameless ) as Violet Buckle, Jack Hawkins ( Holby City ) as Christopher Dockerill and Leonie Elliott (Wondrous Oblivion, Danny and the Human Zoo) as Nurse Lucille Anderson.
Season 5 of CALL THE MIDWIFE, which aired on PBS in spring 2016, averaged a 2.21 household rating with an average audience of 3.1 million viewers (P2 ), and the series has seen an overall growth of 6 percent since its Season 1 debut. There were 2.1 million streams of Season 5 across station-branded PBS platforms (April 4-June 7, 2016). Through six episodes, Season 6 of CALL THE MIDWIFE is outpacing its two most recent U.S. runs by averaging a 2.40 HH rating and delivering nearly 3.4 million viewers (P2 ) per minute. Momentum has increased over the course of the current season, with the April 30, 2017, broadcast of Episode 5 (2.60 HH, 3.7 MM P2 ) marking the series' third highest-rated U.S. outing of all time. Moreover, CALL THE MIDWIFE landed PBS the #3 spot among Women 40 for the April 2017 Sunday 8 pm timeslot. Season 6 to date, 9.3 million Americans have tuned to one or more episodes of CALL THE MIDWIFE on television. In addition, the season has generated 1.6 million digital streams.
Made by Neal Street Productions for BBC One and PBS, CALL THE MIDWIFE has also been one of Britain's most popular drama series since it launched in 2012, and it continues to be one of the most-watched dramas in the UK, with all six seasons to date gaining over 10 million viewers. More than 11 million people watched CALL THE MIDWIFE Season 6 Episode 3, and the series itself rated even higher than Season 5. CALL THE MIDWIFE has recently been voted the Best Drama of the 21st Century in the BFI & Radio Times Festival Audience Poll.
The ensem
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
BBC WORLDWIDE AND PBS ANNOUNCE CALL THE MIDWIFE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL AND SEASON 7 FILMING
