Call the Midwife, was the highest rated new drama launch on record for the BBC, and this Sunday, September 30, it makes its way to NPT and PBS stations nationwide at 7:00 p.m. CT. The show will then air for the next consecutive five Sundays, also at 7:00 p.m.
Based on the best-selling memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth, this moving, intimate, funny and true-to-life series tells colorful stories of midwifery and families in London’s East End in the 1950s. Jenny Lee (newcomer Jessica Raine), a young woman raised in the wealthy English countryside, has chosen to become a nurse and now, as a newly qualified midwife, has gone to work in the poorest area of the city. Attached to an order of nursing nuns at Nonnatus House, Jenny is part of a team of women who minister to expectant mothers, many of whom give birth at home in appalling conditions. The drama follows Jenny as she meets her patients and learns to love the people who live in the East End.
In a special partnership with the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, we’ve got several exciting ways that can watch the show with the nurse-midwives from the School’s administration.
Free Screening Thursday, September 27:
The first is a free screening of the first episode on Thursday, Sept. 27, at 7 p.m. at Sarratt Cinema. After screening the hour-long episode, the audience can participate in a panel discussion with Vanderbilt experts in nurse-midwifery and history. The panel includes Margaret Buxton, CNM, clinical practice director of VUSN’s West End Women’s Health Center; Michelle Collins, Ph.D., CNM, director of VUSN’s Nurse-Midwifery Program; and James Epstein, Ph.D., Distinguished Chair of History.
Weekly Monday morning blog analysis beginning October 1:
And then, in an unprecedented blog initiative for NPT, these same nurse-midwives will be posting right here on the NPT Media Update blog every Monday morning following the previous night’s episodes. They’ll be providing some historical and contemporary context on what we’ve been watching. And it being a drama, maybe dishing some dirt on the goings on around the East End and the Nonnatus House, and whether Sister Mary Joan knows more than she’s letting on. So watch the show and join us here the next Monday to start and join a conversation about the episodes and what we might expect from the next week. Consider it a little morning-after-Midwife analysis. We’ll also be reminding you about the posts on our Facebook and Twitter pages, so be sure to follow us there.
See you on October 1, the morning after episode one!
In the meantime, check out a highlights clip!