Midwives hear the call of the Far East...

LYNN RUSK CHATS TO THE CALL THE MIDWIFE CAST ABOUT THIS YEAR'S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, WHICH TAKES THE STORY TO BOTH HONG KONG AND POPLAR

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ON A MISSION: Shelagh, Dr Turner, Nurse Crane and Sister Hilda in Hong Kong

CALL The Midwife, the hit period drama about a group of nurse midwives working in London's East End, has captured audiences' hearts for more than a decade.

Set across the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the series by Heidi Thomas is inspired by Jennifer Worth's Call The Midwife trilogy, drawn from her experiences with the Community of St John the Divine, an Anglican religious order based at its convent.

This festive season, the nuns and midwives of Nonnatus House return with a two-part Christmas special set in both Hong Kong and Poplar. It will be followed by series 15, featuring eight new hour-long episodes airing from January 2026.

When senior members of the Nonnatus staff travel to Hong Kong on a mercy mission, the younger midwives are left on their own.

As the story moves between the sun-drenched Far East and a snowy East End, Sister Julienne, (Jenny Agutter) finds herself unexpectedly energised about the Order's future.

The special features regular cast members including Laura Main as Shelagh Turner, Helen George as Trixie Aylward, Stephen McGann as Dr Turner and Annabelle Apsion as Violet Buckle.

Jenny, 72, says the Christmas episodes feature a "great deal of displacement".

"When I read it, it certainly struck me, because the scripts reveal this extraordinary division of worlds. It begins with the sense that the mission, the ground itself, has slipped away, and that feeling of the ground disappearing sits underneath everything," explains the BAFTA-award winning actress.