The final ever episode of Call The Midwife aired this evening
Familiar faces returned to Poplar for season 15(Image: BBC)
The TV executives behind Call the Midwife have shared their delight at secretly appearing in tonight’s series finale, alongside returning fan favourite Pam Ferris. Liverpool-born writer and creator Heidi Thomas made a brief cameo as a ghostly nun gliding behind Ferris, who reprised her role as the late Sister Evangelina after a decade away, returning to guide her friend Sister Monica Joan into the afterlife.
Executive producer Pippa Harris, now Dame Pippa Harris, also appeared on screen as a mourner attending a funeral at St Oswald’s church. Pam, 77, last appeared in the BBC drama in 2016, when her beloved character died unexpectedly in the final episode of the fifth series. In tonight’s emotional scenes, she returned to offer comfort and guidance during her old friend’s final moments.
Viewers of the popular Call the Midwife on BBC One had already suspected that Sister Monica Joan’s time at Nonnatus House was nearing its end. In recent weeks, the character was diagnosed with kidney failure, and Doctor Turner warned that his elderly patient did “not have long left,” reports the Mirror.
In tonight’s series 15 finale, the 99-year-old nun, played by Judy Parfitt, who is 90, was given a magnificent send off ahead of the drama taking a break from the screen to allow for the making of a prequel series, set during the war, and for a movie, based in Australia.
Heidi Thomas was awarded an OBE for services to drama(Image: Isabel Infantes/PA Wire)
On screen, as Sister Monica Joan was led out of the room and away from her mortal body on the bed, other nuns followed. One of them was Heidi, who has been writing the series since it launched in 2012. She told the Mirror that it felt appropriate to join in with the action because of the series now being off screen for at least a couple of years.
“Throughout our 15 years on air, I have always said I would appear in the final episode, dressed as a nun – and so I did, even though I was basically a ghost and see-through,” Heidi told the Mirror. “I thought I looked quite good in a wimple, but when my husband (Stephen McGann, who plays Dr Turner) saw me he went white, and said I was the double of the nun who taught him sex education when he was at school.”
Pippa, who first came up with the idea of adapting Jennifer Worth’s memoir for television, said she’d also long harboured a desire to put in an appearance. “Over the years I’ve always thought that one day I’d like to actually appear in Call the Midwife, just fleetingly, in the background, but the timing was never right,” she explained. “Then when I realised that this crucial sequence was about to be shot, and I’d get the chance to put on full mourning attire, it was too good an opportunity to miss.”
Familiar faces returned to Poplar for season 15(Image: BBC)
Ferris, 77, made the decision to leave the series after production moved to a new set in Surrey, which was further for her to travel. Speaking soon after her exit, she said: “Making the decision to leave Call the Midwife was a wrench but because I then became involved with telling the story to the best of my ability, there was no time to feel regret. I’ll miss my friends on set — in front of and behind the camera — and I’ll miss my habit, which is so well-worn and comfortable. But I shan’t miss my wimple.”
There are big changes ahead with the nuns no longer allowed to perform midwifery duties in Poplar, now planning new missions abroad. Other big changes in the episode included nurse Trixie Aylward taking a controlling stake in private maternity facility the Lady Emily, Cyril and Rosalind getting married ahead of their baby arriving despite not having the blessing of her parents and nurse Joyce Highland landing a job as a sister at St Cuthbert’s hospital.
A three-part prequel of Call the Midwife, featuring younger versions of Pam’s character Sister Evangelina, Judy’s Sister Monica Joan and Jenny Agutter’s Sister Julienne is expected to launch on Christmas Day. No casting has yet been announced.
Filming on the movie, featuring all of the current cast and starring Poplar and Australia, is expected to start next year, set in the year 1972. Heidi has said series 16, likely to be based around a new community hospital, will return to BBC1 in due course.