Laura Main as Shelagh Turner, Stephen McGann as Dr Patrick Turner, Max Macmillan, Alice brown as Angela Turner, April Rae Hoang as May Tang, Edward Shaw as Teddy Turner, Zephryn Taitte as Cyril Robinson, Georgie Glen as Miss Higgins, Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne, Fenella Woolgar as Sister Hilda, Leonie Elliott as Lucille Anderson, Ella Bruccoleri as Sister Francis, Judy Parfitt as Sister Monica Joan, Annabelle Apsion as Violet Buckle and Cliff Parisi as Fred Buckle Neals Street Productions.
Season 11 of Call The Midwife packed a lot into its eight episodes. Set in 1967, the year Nonnatus House celebrated its centenary, profound cultural changes took place in the neighborhood of Poplar and all over the world. Nonnatus House’s world is close to ours, despite advances in medicine and cultural change, celebrating women’s skill, kindness, and courage. For all the joy in the series, we are also reminded of the tragic consequences of inadequate medical care, bad decisions, and poverty, issues still with us now.
But the real miracle of Call The Midwife is that it never preaches, judges, or indulges in excessive sentimentality, although many of us keep the tissues handy when watching. Characters came and went in this season, ending up with significantly fewer midwives and nuns in residence, although Sister Monica Joan continued to prove herself immortally eccentric. And Season 11 ended on a distinctly unusual note, with a tragedy no one saw coming, and which threatened the survival of some of our favorite characters. It wasn’t until the Christmas special that normality picked up again.
There was tremendous excitement in 1967 with the Eurovision Song Contest, and Nonnatus House’s inhabitants, like everyone else who could, gathered around the television to see Britain’s own Sandie Shaw win with “Puppet on a String.” Following an adorable Easter celebration, Sister Hilda (Felicity Woolgar) was all set to organize Nonnatus House’s centennial celebration. Wisely and with her usual tact, Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter), following some health problems, decided that Nurse Shelagh Turner (Laura Main) should be in charge.
Nurse Lucille Robinson (Leonie Elliott) discovered she was pregnant, and although she and her husband Cyril (Zephryn Tate) weren’t planning to start a family quite so soon, they were delighted. To add to their joy, Cyril received a job offer matching his engineer qualifications after a long and frustrating search. Things seemed to be looking up for them, but then Lucille suffered a miscarriage, actually delivering her own fetus in a heart-rending scene. Influenced by current thinking that emotions should be kept at bay and a brave face maintained, Lucille tried her best, as did Cyril, but we realized the depths of her fragility.
And there’s romance in the air! The relationship that unfolded with such delicacy and propriety between Nurse Trixie Franklin (Helen George) and Matthew Aylward (Olly Rix) finally took a step forward into romance. But Trixie received a letter from her beloved aunt in Portofino, who was suffering from cancer, and she left to nurse her. Nonnatus suffered further drama when the unflappable Miss Higgins (Georgie Glen) flipped. Her flat was burgled, and she was too unnerved to return home.
Nonnatus House offered hospitality, which Miss Higgins accepted, and proceeded to disrupt and annoy everyone, even her friend Nurse Phyllis Crane (Linda Bassett). She wasn’t used to communal living, and the last straw may have been her recorder recital. Clearly, she had to go, and fortunately, Sister Julienne found her a small terrace house nearby, and everyone became friends again. Nurse Crane had a significant change in her life, too, with a sudden financial windfall, with which she fulfilled a lifelong dream of taking a coach trip around Europe. So three midwives — Trixie, Lucille, and Phyllis — left, putting additional strain on Nonnatus’s services.
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