Call the Midwife

[Ferretfancy]

I saw the book in a charity shop, was tempted to get it just to check that point! I've seen Call the Midwife described as "a comforting mug of Ovaltine for a dreary Winter's night" I suppose much the same can be said about Downton Abbey now (my goodness the Christmas episode which I watched when it was repeated was about the most boring thing I've seen for a very long time) However, while CtM continues to get the ratings the programme will continue, whether Miranda Hart is the draw I don't know (like johncorrigan I have an aversion to her)

I accept all your arguments, but sadly I have to say that reading anything by PD James is like watching paint dry.

[Nick Armstrong]

I saw the book in a charity shop, was tempted to get it just to check that point! I've seen Call the Midwife described as "a comforting mug of Ovaltine for a dreary Winter's night" I suppose much the same can be said about Downton Abbey now (my goodness the Christmas episode which I watched when it was repeated was about the most boring thing I've seen for a very long time) However, while CtM continues to get the ratings the programme will continue, whether Miranda Hart is the draw I don't know (like johncorrigan I have an aversion to her)

Surely swarthy swordsmen, leather trousers, loose shirts and ripping bodices are more to your liking?

[Barbirollians]

I saw the book in a charity shop, was tempted to get it just to check that point! I've seen Call the Midwife described as "a comforting mug of Ovaltine for a dreary Winter's night" I suppose much the same can be said about Downton Abbey now (my goodness the Christmas episode which I watched when it was repeated was about the most boring thing I've seen for a very long time) However, while CtM continues to get the ratings the programme will continue, whether Miranda Hart is the draw I don't know (like johncorrigan I have an aversion to her)

CTM had some pretty hard hitting stories and is pretty unflinching about the poverty in the EAst End in the 1950s . It is nonsense to compare it to Downton Abbey which is a right wing fantasy of a better world when people knew their place .

[amateur51]

I accept all your arguments, but sadly I have to say that reading anything by PD James is like watching paint dry.

I second the motion - a wildly over-rated writer who makes Christie look wildly risqué

[LHC]

CTM had some pretty hard hitting stories and is pretty unflinching about the poverty in the EAst End in the 1950s . It is nonsense to compare it to Downton Abbey which is a right wing fantasy of a better world when people knew their place .

There was an amusing review of the Christmas Downton Abbey episode in the Telegraph, which claimed that Downton is in fact virulent Marxist propaganda. In the words of the reviewer:

If Fellowes really were the fawning nostalgist some people assume he is, he would have made at least some of the upper-class characters sympathetic and interesting. Instead, he’s made every last one of them charmless, cold, stiff, rude, pompous, sour and, above all, ferociously boring. Only a fanatical Trotskyite could have created a constipated puffed-up bullfrog like the Earl of Grantham, or a simpering goose-faced drip like Lady Edith, or an acrid sneering crone like the Dowager Countess.

On anachronisms, when the film of Henry James' novella The Europeans was released, a colleague was shocked to hear one character ask another to "do me a favour". James, he announced sniffily, would never have used such a phrase. He was even more shocked when he re-read the novella to find this piece of dialogue was a direct quote!

[Petrushka]

A relative worked as a midwife in the East End in the 1950s and watched the Christmas Day episode while the rest of us slept off our belated turkey lunch. Her comment was that it is full of mistakes.

[Barbirollians]

A relative worked as a midwife in the East End in the 1950s and watched the Christmas Day episode while the rest of us slept off our belated turkey lunch. Her comment was that it is full of mistakes.

The series is based on the account of a 1950s East End midwife though - perhaps their memories differ .On the other hand , from the Christmas special onwards it has ceased to be based on the memoirs as they have used up all the stories and the scope for mistakes is no doubt enormously increased.

[ardcarp]

I've seen Call the Midwife described as "a comforting mug of Ovaltine for a dreary Winter's night"

...except that every episode must have at least one actress reproducing the grunts, groans and screams of a woman in her travail, three more peering anxiously up between a pair of legs and a very bloody new-born greeting the world with a wail. For relaxation on a dreary winter's night I'll just take the Ovaltine, thanks. BTW, where do all the bright red newborns come from, and couldn't they stick on a bit of faux umbilical cord for the sake of biological exactitude?

[Flosshilde]

I saw the Christmas episode of Downton Abbey and that was full of this sort of anachronism

I thought that was the whole point of Downturn Abbey?


Alpen mentioned The Musketeers (note that they've dropped any mention of how many - leaving the it open to introduce any amount of new characters). I saw the first episode - the thing that got me mildly riled were the costumes - vaguely 'old' but not particularly 17th century, & leather, which I'm sure wouldn't have been the case. It seems to be following in the footsteps of the New Sherlock series & others in creating characters & plots very loosely based on the originals. What's wrong with the original stories?

[Flosshilde]

...except that every episode must have at least one actress reproducing the grunts, groans and screams of a woman in her travail, three more peering anxiously up between a pair of legs and a very bloody new-born greeting the world with a wail.

A bit difficult making a series about the work of a group of midwives without showing any of that?

Still, as they've used up all the original stories there's scope to focus more on the extra-curricular lives of the characters, & reduce the bloody baby count (until the midwives get pregnant themselves ).

[ardcarp]

A bit difficult making a series about the work of a group of midwives without showing any of that?

...as my g-kids remind me every time we watch it! They seem to take a keen interest in the obstetrics, and do not seem a bit worried about childbirth as they may experience it in the future.

My point is that comparisons with Ovaltine are wide of the mark!

[Flosshilde]

True, although I think that in this type of programme there is a mandatory 'heart-warming' moment/moral at the end, which is where the Ovaltine might come in.

I did see the last 5 minutes of one episode recently (I've just spent a week visiting my mother - she goes to bed very early, which means that I end up watching lots of rubbish TV), and yes, there was a great deal of over-acting* resulting in a bloody baby & obligatory warm heart.

*Although it's probably nothing like the real thing.

[amateur51]

I thought that was the whole point of Downturn Abbey?

There is a point, whole or otherwise, to Downtown A Bee?

[Flosshilde]

Of course - to show the lower orders the natural state of things & prepare them for the next Conservative government under Dave & Giddy-on. It's not about the past, but the future.

[ardcarp]

Gareth Malone eat your heart out tonight. Ex-midwife forms choir from East End mums, who, after one rehearsal, perform Mozart's Ave Verum at the funeral of one of the other characters. Impeccable tuning, blend and phrasing...accompanied by 12-year-old stepson. Er.........