Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas: Why I'm giving the midwives an 'UNCOMFORTABLE' Christmas

Call the Midwife Christmas (Image credit: BBC/Neal Street Productions)

Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas reveals all about filming the Christmas special in the Outer Hebrides

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a Call the Midwife festive special. And this year’s seasonal instalment of the BBC1 period drama finds our favourite nuns and midwives leaving Nonnatus House behind for the chilly climes of the Outer Hebrides.

“It was high time to take the Christmas special out of Poplar and our characters out of their comfort zones,” the show’s creator, Heidi Thomas, tells us. “I wanted to put them somewhere uncomfortable because that’s where drama is born.”

The special sees them make their way to the remote Scottish islands as the residents are desperately short of medical assistance. The indefatigable Mother Mildred (Miriam Margolyes) swiftly gathers the troops including Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter), Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett), Trixie (Helen George), Valerie (Jennifer Kirby), Lucille (Leonie Elliott), Fred (Cliff Parisi) and Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) and Shelagh (Laura Main).

Once they head to Scotland, however, the medical team soon find themselves facing unexpected challenges. Along with having to work in tough weather conditions, they have difficulties accessing the electricity that they urgently require to give their patients the best possible treatment.

MORE: Everything we know about the new Worzel Gummidge which will be on BBC1 this Christmas

Heidi admitted that she was very proud of the the cast and crew as they gamely dealt with filming in extreme weather at their windswept location in the Outer Hebrides.

“The actors were heroic because the winds were very cold. We had a couple of days of torrential downpour!” she revealed.

But the idyllic location soon won everyone over.

“It was so magical filming in the Outer Hebrides. It was possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my life,” enthused Heidi. “I wasn’t prepared for how extraordinarily rugged it was, but also how the light changes the landscape. When the sun comes out, you’re looking at one world. Then the snow comes down and you’re looking at something else entirely.”

Call the Midwife returns this Christmas on BBC1

Caren has been a journalist specializing in TV for almost two decades and is a Senior Features Writer for TV Times, TV & Satellite Week and What’s On TV magazines and she also writes for What to Watch.

Over the years, she has spent many a day in a muddy field or an on-set catering bus chatting to numerous stars on location including the likes of Olivia Colman, David Tennant, Suranne Jones, Jamie Dornan, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi as well as Hollywood actors such as Glenn Close and Kiefer Sutherland.

Caren will happily sit down and watch any kind of telly (well, maybe not sci-fi!), but she particularly loves period dramas like Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey and The Crown and she’s also a big fan of juicy crime thrillers from Line of Duty to Poirot.

In her spare time, Caren enjoys going to the cinema and theatre or curling up with a good book.