Call The Midwife | Review

'Call The Midwife' is a BBC period drama series. It's about a group of midwives working in the East End of London in the 1950s and the 1960s. Some of the cast members include Jessica Raine, Miranda  Hart, Helen George and many more. The series was created by Heidi Thomas and was originally based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, but it has been expanded to include new, historically sourced material.

The first series aired in 2012, the second series aired in 2013, the third series aired in 2014, the four series aired in 2015 and series 6 will be aired in 2016. The plot follows a newly qualified midwife called Jenny Lee, and the work of the midwives, the nuns in a nursing convene and part of an Anglican religious order. They are seen having to cope with the medical problems in the desperately poor East End in the 1950s.

Because the series is set in the 1950s, the whole look of the series needs to look old, and to do this it needs to have a sepia sort of effect on it, or at least the colour needs to be distorted and changed. The clothing the characters wear are quite dull and not too harsh. Also their main mode of transport is a bike, which is accurate in that time period. The series is usually filmed in historic places to add to the time period that it was set in. All in all the mise-en-scene in this TV series is accurate to the period and helps create an old effect.

The executive producers of the show are Pippa Harris, Heidi Thomas, the producer is Hugh Warren and the head of cinematography is Chris Seager. Due to the high popularity rate of this series, there has been several Christmas special episodes as well as comic relief and children in need episodes to help promote the given message but also, in a way, promote the show further.

This show interested me because I felt the writing of the script suited the time period very well, and they way that they showed it when filming was very good and realistic. The writing of the series won't necessarily help me when it comes to writing my short film, but it may help me when writing the flashback scenes. Due to the flashbacks being seen in past tense, and this series being set in the past, it will help me create some good links between some of the moments in my script.