CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Call The Midwife on BBC1: A soap but so much more, Midwife is still one of the best shows on TV
Call The Midwife (BBC1)
A teenage Tracy Barlow on Coronation Street went upstairs to do her homework, shortly before Christmas 1999, and didn't come down for two years.
Dirty Den Watts (Leslie Grantham), missing believed dead for 14 years (shot by a man with a gun hidden in a bunch of daffodils), walked back onto EastEnders in 2003: 'Hello Princess,' he greeted his gobsmacked daughter Sharon.
Soapland has always found ingenious ways to rest, retire and revive characters - but Call The Midwife has refined this to an art form.
Part of the secret of its long-running success, now stretching to 14 series dating back to 2012, is the way it allows cast members to exit plausibly, without resorting to hitmen with spring bouquets.
Trixie (Helen George) is back from New York, where she has parked her wealthy hubbie Matthew, on the flimsiest of pretexts... something about wanting to keep up her midwifery skills. Apparently, she's not qualified to deliver babies in Brooklyn.
The character has taken a couple of previous breaks, once when she had to dry out from an excess of Babycham, and again when she felt the need to check on maternity procedures in South Africa. On both occasions, writer Heidi Thomas managed the departures seamlessly.
As the latest episode ended, social worker Cyril felt a sudden urge to visit his wife, former Nurse Lucille (pictured), in Jamaica
Cyril went to visit his wife in Jamaica in a recent episode, meaning he can return to the show at any moment
It's easier for the nuns of Nonnatus House - they're simply dispatched to the 'Mother House', a sort of ecclesiastical storeroom stocked with spinsters in wimples. Sister Frances is there, and Sister Winifred, kept in order by Mother Mildred (Miriam Margoyles).
As the latest episode ended, social worker Cyril felt a sudden urge to visit his wife, former Nurse Lucille, in Jamaica. This is convenient in several ways - he can plausibly return at any moment, or stay away permanently, and his exit saves naïve Nurse Rosalind from sinful thoughts.
As they finished a flower arrangement at the homeless shelter, their hands briefly touched, and we all know where that can lead. Hold hands for more than a few seconds in Poplar, and nine months later you'll be splayed on a hospital bed with Trixie and Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) urging you to push.
By all these measures, Call The Midwife is every bit a soap opera. But it is so much more - an atmospheric historical drama, crammed with props and clothes that evoke the London of 1970, with a real social conscience and a true insight into human nature.
The storylines never flinch from showing real poverty and mental illness. This time, Abigail Hood played single mother Arlene, whose bipolar mood disorder worsened after a callous doctor remarked that her lithium medication might harm her unborn baby.
The squalor of her rented accommodation was vividly conveyed without any comment. The subplot, about the spread of venereal disease through dockland brothels, was even more grim.
Call The Midwife fearlessly portrays these shocking but realistic aspects of city life, in an intelligent fashion that no other soap would attempt. In a quiet way, it remains one of the best shows on television.
Eight Royal Mail stamps celebrating Dawn French's sitcom The Vicar Of Dibley go on sale tomorrow. Alice (Emma Chambers) features on one of the First Class designs. They're fab... but shouldn't it be The Royle Family on stamps?
