---
title: "Call the Midwife"
year: 2012
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/call-the-midwife"
fi1m_score: 80
critics_score: 69
critics_reviews: 7
published: "2026-09-17T15:59:32.630699+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T15:59:56.030336+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Call the Midwife (2012)

Created by Heidi Thomas · 52m · MPA TV-MA · Drama

**Fi1m score: 80** · Critics 69 from 7 reviews

*In a sentence:* The nuns can be trusted with the midwifery; the music is less discreet

> Heidi Thomas’s *Call the Midwife* earns most of its tears by taking women’s work seriously. Strong performances make the comfort persuasive, though the insistence on finding a lesson can soften the harder stories.

## Synopsis

In 1950s London, midwifery brings Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) into the lives of women facing pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter), Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) and Sister Evangelina (Pam Ferris) are part of the same community, alongside Dr Patrick Turner (Stephen McGann). The immediate task is to care for mothers and babies, but differences of class and circumstances complicate that work. Each woman’s needs extend beyond the delivery itself. Medical care, religious faith and the everyday demands of helping neighbours meet in stories about women giving birth and those attending them.

## Review

Heidi Thomas’s *Call the Midwife* is well worth your time, provided you can forgive its occasional need to explain the value of kindness. Its subject is work: women helping other women through pregnancy and childbirth, with all the practical demands that entails. Set in 1950s London, it takes class differences seriously without treating every encounter as a demonstration of how far we have come. The pleasure is in spending time with people who can be useful when somebody else is frightened.

Jessica Raine gives Jenny Lee a watchfulness that suits a drama built around paying attention to other people’s lives. She does not need to dominate an encounter for us to register its effect on her, although the writing sometimes makes her a rather dutiful route into somebody else’s story. Jenny Agutter, as Sister Julienne, supplies the steadiness on which much of the programme depends. We found her calm unexpectedly moving, because she makes listening to a worried woman feel like necessary work, deserving the same attention as the medical business.

Judy Parfitt’s Sister Monica Joan and Pam Ferris’s Sister Evangelina keep the religious life from becoming one long display of saintliness. There is humour in the differences between these women, and the performances leave space for awkwardness and impatience. That matters in a programme so ready to believe the best of its characters. The faith is taken seriously, but the women are allowed personalities, and their company remains interesting even when there is no urgent medical problem to occupy them.

Cinematographers Kate Reid and Chris Seager keep the visual emphasis on the performers, a sensible choice for stories that depend on someone being heard. Amy Roberts’s costume design gives the period its due without making clothes the reason to watch. The surroundings can nevertheless feel tidier than the hardship being described, and that tidiness sometimes weakens the drama. We need not demand relentless ugliness from stories about difficult lives, but a little less reassurance in the pictures would help.

Peter Salem’s music is the more persistent difficulty. It can press for tenderness when the acting has already earned it, and the writing has a related tendency to tell us what a woman’s experience ought to mean. The episodic stories also become easier to anticipate once the programme has established how it likes to offer reassurance. These are limitations worth knowing about, especially for anyone who dislikes being guided towards a feeling, but they do not cancel the care taken over individual women.

Within the period medical drama, giving so much attention to mothers and to the labour of caring makes a useful difference. The programme finds things worth watching in ordinary competence, and permits happiness to carry a story without requiring an immediate disaster to justify it. Its strongest passages understand that a birth can be physically demanding and socially complicated at once. Its weaker ones settle for a lesson about kindness, leaving some of those complications insufficiently explored.

This is good company for an evening when patience and decency sound more appealing than another ingenious plot. The performances give its consolations enough weight to survive the occasional sermon, and the women’s work remains worth our attention. Start it for the people; if the music has to insist that a moment is touching, allow yourself to disagree.

*Fi1m score 80, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics respond warmly to Call the Midwife, praising its sympathetic characters, strong performances and convincing sense of community in 1950s East End London. The favourable reviews find that stories of maternity and motherhood make room for joy as well as hardship. Praise also centres on the balance between comforting period detail and grittier stories about women’s lives. For these critics, the emotional pull is largely earned rather than imposed.

The spread is wide, however, and sentimentality is the main dividing line. What admirers find warm and reassuring, The Independent finds overly clean-cut and predictable, with messages about love and class that verge on patronising. Variety takes a more moderate position, valuing the supporting performances, particularly Miranda Hart’s, but finding the episodic drama less than compelling. The consensus is favourable, though the dissent raises a clear question about how much comfort these difficult stories can bear.

### Reviews we read (7)

- **The Times** (90/100, inferred): The series is utterly winning, with sympathetic characters, honest plots and well-managed class themes that avoid sentimentality or snobbery. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/a-drama-to-answer-all-our-prayers-lbrwmtxhg8l)
- **The AV Club**, Alasdair Wilkins, Brandon Nowalk (B+): The series is a well-made, comforting period drama about midwives in 1950s East End London that excels through its characters and setting rather than deep ideas. It is recommended as cozy viewing with strong performances and nostalgic appeal. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/call-the-midwife-concussed-nonplussed-1798174370)
- **The Telegraph**, Neil Midgley (80/100, inferred): The Christmas special made for perfect Christmas telly with its heartwarming nostalgia and mix of Christianity and dry comedy. It earned its emotional moments through gritty storylines alongside the sentimentality. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9764776/Call-the-Midwife-Christmas-Special-BBC-One-review.html)
- **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The series is cosy, sentimental Sunday night television in the vein of All Creatures Great and Small, with heart-warming stories and strong performances that balance grit and nostalgia effectively. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/jan/26/call-the-midwife)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (50/100, inferred): The series offers a solid but not particularly addictive window into 1950s East London midwifery through episodic stories of women's lives, with strong supporting performances especially from Miranda Hart. [Read](https://variety.com/2012/tv/reviews/call-the-midwife-1117948428/)
- **The Independent**, Gerard Gilbert (30/100, inferred): The drama feels overly sentimental and clean-cut despite its gritty subject matter, with predictable messages about love and class that verge on patronising. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekend-s-viewing-call-the-midwife-sun-bbc1-sherlock-sun-bbc1-6289980.html)
- **Collider**, Allison Keene (★★★★): The series remains conflicted yet consistently delivers great stories in a fully-realized world, finding drama in joy as much as hardship. It excels at portraying maternity, motherhood, and community without saccharine manipulation. [Read](https://collider.com/call-the-midwife-season-4-review/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Heidi Thomas
- **Creator:** Heidi Thomas
- **Director:** Syd Macartney, David O'Neill, David Tucker, Lisa Clarke, Noreen Kershaw, Juliet May, Philippa Lowthorpe, Darcia Martin, James Larkin, China Moo-Young, Sheree Folkson, Sarah Esdaile, Minkie Spiro, Jamie Payne, Kate Cheeseman, Roger Goldby, Dominic Leclerc, Anne Tricklebank, Kate Saxon, Christiana Ebohon-Green, Thomas Hescott, Claire Winyard, Rebecca Johnson, Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Emma Sullivan, John Maidens, Corin Campbell-Hill, Delyth Thomas, Ruth Carney, Afia Nkrumah, Thea Sharrock, Ann Tricklebank, Avril Evans, Amy Neil, Ruth Platt, Jo Southwell, Rebecca Johnson
- **Writer:** Heidi Thomas, Jonathan Harvey, Nicola Wilson, Lucy Catherine, Lena Rae, Debbie O'Malley, Sally Abbott, Andrea Gibb, Carolyn Bonnyman, Lisa Holdsworth, Susan Everett, Annalisa D'Innella, Esther Wilson, Abigail Wilson, Harriet Warner, Jack Williams, Katerina Watson, Sasha Hails, Helen Raynor, Chloe Moss, Paul Walker, Joe Ainsworth
- **Cinematography:** Chris Seager, Kate Reid
- **Music:** Peter Salem
- **Costume design:** Amy Roberts
- **Producer:** Ann Tricklebank, Hugh Warren
- **Cast:** Vanessa Redgrave as Jennifer Worth (voice); Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne; Judy Parfitt as Sister Monica Joan; Jessica Raine as Jenny Lee; Molly Vevers as Sister Catherine; Rebecca Gethings as Sister Veronica; Jennifer Kirby as Nurse Valerie Dyer; Linda Bassett as Phyllis Crane
- **Runtime:** 52m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 15 January 2012
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVfdZevxf_o

## Where to watch in the US

- Netflix: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd
- Apple TV: buy, sd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IN, IT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, SE, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *All Creatures Great and Small* (1978): Another working community where practical skill and difficult patients supply the drama.
- *Vera Drake* (2004), Fi1m 84: A much harsher account of reproductive care, class and the limits of kindness. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/vera-drake.md)
- *The Midwife* (2017): A midwife’s carefully managed life meets an old acquaintance with little respect for order.
- *Our Little Sister* (2015): Patient attention to sisters, domestic routines and the work of making a family.
- *The Farewell* (2019), Fi1m 84: A family argues over care and truth, with room for awkward laughter. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-farewell.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/call-the-midwife