Why ‘Call The Midwife’ continues its reign as the subversive heart of the BBC

Call The Midwife cast – 2020

The BBC is under attack from many sides in 2020.

With the arrival of a sizeable Conservative majority, rumours abound that the Government wants to do away with the public licence fee.

Meanwhile, in an effort to cut costs, redundancies and programme culling has been announced – the most high-profile being the Victoria Derbyshire Show.

There are also those (from both sides of the spectrum) who still harbour grudges about the supposedly-biassed news coverage of the December election campaign – understandably frustrated with their own party’s poor performance.

Enter Call The Midwife – a TV show that probably embodies Sunday-evening viewing at its best: seemingly parochial and anachronistic storylines, with a hint of jeopardy, but where everything always turns out OK in the end.

On the face of it, last Sunday’s episode would seem to be a classic of its ilk.


The wife of a cancer patient (played by the excellent Samantha Spiro) is loth to accept help, while she juggles looking after her dementia-suffering mum, plus her daughter with toddler and newborn.

Where’s the subversion, you may ask? Well (plot spoiler!), not only is Sam Spiro’s character a rare example on TV of a woman going through the menopause, while struggling to look after everyone else, but the outcome shines a light on the standard social services that used to exist for someone in her position after surgery (home help, respite care, for example).

In fact, the whole midwife movement is a shining example of something that is now almost non-existent within the NHS, but has been slowly dismantled in the name of centralisation and modernisation.

And this particular plotline is hardly asymptomatic. This series has examined attitudes to race and prostitution, while alcoholism, LGBT rights, cervical cancer, measles vaccinations and many other issues that continue to exist 70 years on, have been covered in previous series.

The topics may be wrapped within the warm embrace of London’s East End community in the 50s/60s, when everyone still had time for each other and we all knew our neighbours, but the parallels are clear.

At a time when the country feels so divided, Call The Midwife is an echo of when life appeared better – as long as you ignore unsanitary living conditions, overlook the fact that ‘differences’ were barely tolerated and forget that the pace and pressures of modern society barely impinged on life.

It may be a stretch to suggest that Call The Midwife – on its own – is enough to overthrow an established order (the dictionary definition of ‘subversion’), but it’s a gentle way for the BBC to demonstrate that looking at the successes and failures of the past is often a sensible way to plan for the future.

Why a story beats facts every time

I’ve been reading – and been thoroughly blown away by – Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Overstory* this January.

It interweaves the stories of nine different people who become linked as a result of a natural catastrophe – it’s very much a story of our time, but I was struck by the following quote contained within.

“The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

Those two sentences seem to sum up much that’s taking place in today’s world.

The ‘story’ of climate change

As the bushfires rage in Australia, the debate about climate still doesn’t appear to have been won. In fact, the climate change deniers incredibly still seem to be making things work to their own advantage.

Which is why the quote from The Overstory resonated so much. It came hot on the heels of an excellent episode of Michael Rosen’s BBC Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth, that focusses specifically on how to best communicate the concept climate change to a wider audience and why telling the right stories about climate is the way to make people understand what’s happening.

Ultimately – and it’s a well-worn trope and one which I’ve used many times myself – it’s a story’s influence on someone’s emotions and feelings that really changes how they think.

The reason that fake news often works is because it taps into something far deeper than the plain facts. Fake news is designed to ‘push your buttons’, to arouse a strong feeling, one that will stay with you long after a specific piece of information.

Use emotion to motivate

But storyelling and feelings aren’t just used for negative purposes. They can motivate too.

Psychologist Adam Grant carried out an experiment back in 2007 (detailed in his excellent book Give and Take*), where he and his team arranged for a team of call centre workers to meet (for just 5 minutes) a scholarship student at the university who benefited from their fundraising efforts. The workers were able to hear the student’s story of her studies.

A month later, callers who had interacted with the scholarship student spent more than two times as many minutes on the phone, and brought in vastly more money.

So when you next start arguing with someone, reeling off facts in an effort to convince them of something, think about trying a different approach. Tell a story and make them ‘feel’.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”
Maya Angelou

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* This is one of those affiliate links which means that should you decide my recommendation is worth more than a grain of salt and you buy ‘said item’, I end up earning a pittance of money in return. It costs you nothing in return, by the way.

Be like Donovan – keep the thrill alive

Earlier this week, I was listening to an episode of Blood On The Tracks, the Colin Murray-fronted show, where guests bring their record collections and debate their favourite tracks in certain chosen categories.

In one particular round, the guests were asked to name their favourite act to come out of Scotland.

Fashion queen and former guitarist in The Fall Brix Smith chose Donovan.

If you don’t recognise the name or the above picture of Donovan, don’t worry.

In the 60s, he had a string of hits, such as Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman and Hurdy Gurdy Man, but his star waned in the 70s.

It transpired that Brix Smith knows Donovan and has his number, so Colin Murray challenged her to call him live during the recording. Continue reading “Be like Donovan – keep the thrill alive”