Call the Midwife creator addresses when show will end
"There are so many stories to tell, medically, socially, even emotionally."
Rare is the TV show that reaches double digits and, as we gear up for Call the Midwife season 12, naturally speculation is rife that the long-running BBC drama could be coming to an end.
But it looks like fans desperate for more baby scenes, romance and heartache needn't worry any time soon.
Call the Midwife has been renewed up until season 13 on BBC One, meaning the show will definitely be on our screens until 2024.
And during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas revealed that the drama "could keep on going" well beyond that point.
The upcoming 12th season of the show, production on which is well underway, is set in 1968, while season 13 will cover 1969.
"I think in principle, it could go into the 1970s," Thomas said of the series.
She continued: "The order of nuns on whom the Nonnatus nuns are based stay in the East End until 1976, but I think more importantly than that single historic fact is that of women’s lives and the lives of the working classes as well, because increasingly over the years we’ve written about them, which I think also brings in a fresh dynamic which is always changing.
"There are so many stories to tell, medically, socially, even emotionally, and I think we could keep on going. The proviso I would give is that at the moment we’re only commissioned for series 12, which we’re halfway through filming, and series 13, which we will make next year."
Thomas concluded: "And beyond that we don’t know what plans the BBC has, so yes we would be waiting on news from them I think."
The show's creator went on to tease some exciting season 12 storylines, revealing the upcoming chapter will feature a ventouse birth for the first time.
"Again, we’re looking at some very strong stories about the way society was changing at that time," she explained. "And that can be as simple as ventouse delivery coming in as a sort of, improvement, or alternative, to forceps certainly."
Thomas added that season 12 will be influenced by Enoch Powell’s inflammatory anti-immigration speech, which saw him dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet.
"But also in the very first episode of the new series which will probably come out in January if it follows the usual pattern, I realised the timing of that episode coincided exactly with Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech which made a huge difference, and not a very positive difference, to race relations in Great Britain.
"It was a big turning point I think for our society and the way we spoke of and behaved towards people who had come here from other countries, so that was something we felt we had to tackle."
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