Call the Midwife to film episode in South Africa

(Image credit: BBC/Neal Street Productions/Soph)

Call the Midwife is to film an episode of the new series in apartheid-era South Africa, according to a report.

Quite how the East End of London-set drama will make the narrative jump to South Africa is a secret, but The Guardian reports that several members of the cast are due to fly to South Africa in April to film the story set in 1962.

The Guardian speculates that the nuns of Nonnatus House may be visiting a religious order in South Africa.

Despite the relocation to South Africa a spokesman for the series producers, Neal Street Productions, said it won't cost any more than filming at the usual sets in London, Kent and Surrey. An episode of Call the Midwife costs around £1million.

The popular BBC1 drama about the nuns and midwives serving the working-class families of Poplar has gradually increased its viewing audience and series five concluded in early March with more than nine million viewers.

Call the Midwife series six will screen on BBC1 in early 2017.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.