Call the Midwife

Have you gotten hooked on Call the Midwife? This BBC period drama series is written by Heidi Thomas and based on the best-selling memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth (who had been involved in writing the script and selecting the actresses but sadly died of cancer just days before filming began). Call the Midwife premiered in the UK in January 2012 and  in the US on PBS  last September to wide critical acclaim. 

The story is set in London's East End in the 1950s and follows a community of delightful and exceptional midwives and nursing nuns. The heartfelt—often heartbreaking—plots follow nurse and newly qualified midwife Jenny Lee and other midwives and nuns of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent that copes with medical problems in a poor neighborhood called Poplar. The show stars (left to right above) Laura Main, Helen George, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Jenny Agutter and Bryony Hannah—with narrator Vanessa Redgrave as the voice of the mature Jenny.

PBS has a website where you can find information about the show and watch the first 3 episodes of the first season for a limited time. Season 2 will premiere on PBS on Sunday, March 31. Here's a preview.

Photo: BBC