Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas has teased what’s in store for fan-favourite nurse, Trixie Aylward, in the upcoming 14th season of the hit BBC show.
Ahead of the Christmas special, Heidi revealed that Trixie undertakes a new role in Poplar as she continues to divide her time between Nonnatus House and her new life in New York with her husband Matthew.
Trixie, who is played by Helen George, revealed her plans to join her husband in the Big Apple at the end of series 13 after Matthew was offered the opportunity to build a business empire amid his money troubles.
Speaking to HELLO! and other press at the series 14 launch in November, Heidi teased: “Trixie continues to divide her time between her exciting new life in New York and life at Nonnatus House and she becomes instrumental in a new management plan which results in the sustainment of life at Nonnatus House that gives her new management type of responsibilities.”
Series 14 consists of eight new episodes and opens in March 1970 to find the Nonnatus House nuns and nurses opening its doors to a pregnant teenage girl. The synopsis for episode one reads: “It’s March 1970. The team support a pregnant teenage girl whose parents believe in an immaculate conception. Demonstrations cause havoc for the Nonnatus team, whilst Nancy’s relationship blossoms.”
Meanwhile, episode two sees Trixie care for a first-time mum. The logline reads: “Rising rates of gonorrhoea in the district cause alarm, and Trixie cares for an unmarried first-time mother recently diagnosed with a mental health condition.”
© Neal Street Productions/Olly CourtneySpeaking about the upcoming season in a behind-the-scenes video posted on the show’s official social media page, Jenny Agutter – aka Sister Julienne – said: “Automatically, there’s something that feels very different about the 60s and the 70s. For the Poplar community, it’s seeing more wealth, more growth.”
The actress continued: “In the 70s, it seemed like there was a lot of things to deal with. People expected more. You have the strikes, you have the difficulties. There were lots of problems in the 70s that were to do with a kind of uncomfortable change, I think, that was happening in society.”
© Neal Street Productions/Olly Courtney/BBCAddressing the future of the show, which has been renewed for a 15th season, showrunner Heidi told press in November that while she doesn’t know how long the show will continue for, she’s not “going to run out of stories”.
“I don’t know how long we’re going to go on, we aren’t going to run out of stories,” she said. “People ask me every year, ‘Where do you get your stories from?’ and the simple answer is, I go to the British newspaper archive or I go into the medical archive.”
© Neal Street Productions/Andrea Southam/BBCThe writer continued: “I think we are rooted in realism, love and changing times and because times keep changing, we will keep going on.”
Call the Midwife returns to BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday 5 January at 8pm.
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