Exclusive: Call the Midwife "determined" to film festive special in time for Christmas Day
Production for the much-loved BBC drama has been put on hold due to the coronavirus outbreak – but all is not lost!
Filming for Call the Midwife may have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic – but the team is still utterly determined to get the festive special finished in time for Christmas Day 2020.
"Like everyone, the Call The Midwife family are currently following government advice and living life very differently," series creator and writer Heidi Thomas told RadioTimes.com.
"Our sets may be under lock and key, and our producers working from home, but we haven’t abandoned our posts! Scripts are still being written, and we will start filming as soon as circumstances allow. The Christmas Special is our absolute priority, and we are determined to get it on screen on Christmas Day."
Thomas and her real-life husband Stephen McGann (who plays Dr Turner) are the first guests on Call the Midwife Unite, a weekly online event set to bring the global fan community together. On Wednesdays, fans are invited to watch a specific past episode of Call the Midwife – and at 9pm UK time, RadioTimes.com is hosting a live aftershow on Facebook.
"Once Nonnatus House re-opens for business, we will be going full steam ahead and aim to minimise any delay to series 10 as a whole," Thomas added.
"These are extraordinary times, but the Call The Midwife cast and crew are an extraordinary team. We will all be pulling together to bring our lovely, loyal, nine-million-strong audience the top-quality drama they deserve."
Filming for the show usually gets underway in spring each year, but for now things have been put on pause.
Executive Producer Dame Pippa Harris announced on 19th March: "Very sadly, we have had to postpone the filming of this year’s Call the Midwife Christmas Special and series 10. Our priority is the safety of our amazing cast and crew, and we don’t believe that shooting at the current time is feasible or responsible."
However, she added, "the moment the situation improves, the nuns and nurses of Nonnatus House will be back on their bikes, bringing babies into the world and joy into your living rooms."
When the midwives do return for Christmas 2020, we already know that they'll be spending the festive period in Poplar – a contrast to last year's trip to the Outer Hebrides, or previous years in Sussex and South Africa.
"We are staying in Poplar," Heidi Thomas told us in February. "We are not going anywhere cold, we are not going anywhere wet, we’re not going anywhere far away. It’s very much Poplar-based, I’m writing it at the moment.
"And there will be snow and there will be tinsel and there will be trees and there will be Christmas dinner at Nonnatus House. And beyond that it’s a secret!"
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