Call the Midwife – Season 11, Christmas Special

By: Ellie Yates

It’s gearing up to be a busy Christmas in Poplar. Everyone is pulling together to organize Lucille (Leonie Elliott) and Cyrill’s (Zephryn Taitte) Boxing Day wedding and Nonnatus has been assigned twenty extra patients from St Cuthberts. If that wasn’t enough, half of them are due before Christmas!

One of the expectant mothers, Anita (Rosie Day) visits the clinic, but has only made one previous visit. She seems on edge and doesn’t want more tests. Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) gets Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) to examine Anita as she is underweight and very pale. She’s concerned she may be anemic. However, when Sister Julienne returns to check on Anita, she has disappeared. We see her vomiting in the street before re-applying her make-up. Later, Dr Turner gets a call and Tim (Max Macmillan), who is back from university, goes with him. Anita answers the door and leads Dr Turner through a swanky flat to a friend who has been stabbed in the neck. It appears that he is part of some sort of criminal gang. Anita tells Tim he doesn’t need to drink the rum and coke he’s been offered if he doesn’t want to. On their way out Tim tells Dr Turner that Anita looked scared to see him. Anita makes sure the two are gone before she heads into the laundry room to shoot up on heroin.

The next day Anita’s husband Charlie (Jack Myers) arrives at the surgery with their friend to gift a hamper full of rum and chocolates to Dr Turner. Not realizing what it was for, Shelagh (Laura Main) says they are keeping it. It comes in handy for the hen night Sister Hilda (Fenella Woolgar) has planned for Lucille. Despite the original plan being fruit punch, party games and savory snacks, Miss Higgins (Georgie Glen) has snuck in a bottle of rum! There is also much merriment at the pub as Cyril celebrates his stag night with members of his church and Fred (Cliff Parisi) and Reggie (Daniel Laurie). As the sozzled Sisters head to bed, Lucille falls up the stairs and gets the giggles. She’s not laughing the next morning though when she notices her bruised eye. Her eye only gets worse and she turns up at the clinic with it completely swollen shut! Dr Turner tells her that blood has pooled under the skin and she will possibly need surgery. However, Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) has an old, but genius idea. Leeches! Despite the method causing Lucille some distress, it works a treat and her eye recovers. Phew!

Lucille meets Cyril out in the snow and they dance around (careful Lucille!) and build a snowman together. These two are just the cutest! Reggie meets them, as he has snuck out. He’s been wishing for it to snow for ages and he’s not going to miss it. Lucille pops back into Nonnatus to call the Buckles and find a carrot for the snowman’s nose. Reggie and Cyril have a snowball fight before Violet (Annabelle Apsion) calls Reggie in. Seeing as Lucille has had to ask Fred to walk her down the aisle, Cyril asks Reggie if he will be best man.

Of course, this is Poplar so we’re not without drama. Christmas Day arrives and Anita is carrying on like everything is fine in front of Charlie, despite her water breaking and her having contractions. When Charlie leaves for the night she makes her way through the snow to Nonnatus House where Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett) and Miss Higgins rush to help her. They take her to the clinic where Trixie (Helen George) delivers her baby girl. When Nurse Crane later brings Anita her baby, she refuses to breast feed her. Charlie visits the next day and Anita asks if he wants to name the baby after his brother. He was called Dean, but she is thinking Denise. Charlie declines as his brother was addicted to heroin and he doesn’t want her to be named after “anyone who threw their life away.”

Anita’s baby won’t stop crying as another expectant mother, Evelyn (Amy Booth-Steel) goes into labor. This will be her fifth child, she already has four boys! Trixie has her hands full, but Sister Julienne arrives to assist and Trixie tells her she’s worried about Anita, too. She’s clearly suffering from withdrawal symptoms, but Sister Julienne thinks she may have an infection. However, Anita comes clean to Dr Turner and tells him that she doesn’t do heroin every day, just when she feels bad inside. Dr Turner gives her legal medication to replace the drug and subside her withdrawal symptoms. Sister Julienne fetches Dr Turner as the baby has started to fit. The baby is addicted to heroin and is also suffering from withdrawal symptoms, but Dr Turner isn’t quite sure what to do. He doesn’t want to give the baby the wrong dosage.

Meanwhile, at Nonnatus House the sisters and Violet prepare Christmas dinners to be taken to the clinic and Mother Mildred (Miriam Margolyes), who is visiting for Christmas, leads the “troops” to the clinic to deliver them. Not that any of their intended recipients will receive them as they’re all too busy delivering and treating babies! Mildred offers Dr Turner advice for Anita’s baby. She has seen the same thing in babies in Hong Kong and tells the Turners that May (April Rae Hoang) was one of those babies. Mildred, fortunately, knows the dosage and method to treat Anita’s baby. Shelagh says she would like to administer the medicine and hold the baby. Shelagh sensitively tells Anita that the welfare officers will decide what happens to it. Anita explains that the welfare were involved in her childhood due to her alcoholic mother. However, Anita stayed with her mother as she needed her and Anita was good at being needed. Sadly, when Anita was just eleven years old she found her mother dead. Shelagh tells Anita that her baby needs her now and Anita vows to Shelagh and Charlie that she will do better.

Whilst Shelagh is with Anita, Dr Turner rushes to Evelyn who’s baby is taking too long to deliver. He lets Tim watch on as he successfully delivers the baby with forceps. He can’t hang around, though, as there is another mother in distress. He hands the baby to Tim who tells Evelyn she has another boy. Evelyn is sarcastically delighted that she has a 5-a-side team for Christmas! Across the clinic, Dr Turner comes to the aid of Maria (Sophia Eleni) who is hemorrhaging during birth. Her baby is delivered successfully, but needs oxygen. As Sister Julienne tends to the baby, Maria continues to lose a lot of blood. She asks Sister Hilda to pray. Later, Dr Turner brings the good news that both mother and baby will recover after receiving blood transfusions.

Special shoutout to Sister Frances (Ella Brocculeri) who, with the line to Nonnatus engaged what with all the babies being born, has delivered her first breach baby all on her own! Despite being nervous, she didn’t let on to the mother who had full belief in her!

Now onto the small matter of a Boxing Day wedding! However, it is not without a slight hitch as Nancy (Megan Cusack) breaks the news that the wedding car has broke down. Good thing Trixie knows a handsome rich man with a nice car. Matthew (Olly Rix), who Sister Julienne invited to the wedding following his donation to the Order, arrives to pick up Lucille and take her to the church. Lucille looks absolutely stunning in her wedding dress. After earlier saying she didn’t have bridesmaids as they needed to have meaning to her, Nurse Crane surprises her with bridesmaids and page boys all of whom Lucille delivered as babies. In a beautiful and joyous ceremony, Cyril and Lucille say “I do” and the village celebrate with cake and dancing before Cyril and Lucille head home to spend their first night together.

Merry Christmas!