Hit BBC Series ‘Midwife’ to Shoot in South Africa

The popular BBC series “Call the Midwife” – which many are discovering and growing addicted to, now that “Downton Abbey” is over – will be shooting in South Africa in April, according to news reports.

The series, loosely based on a true story by Jennifer Worth and set in London’s East End starting in the late 1950s, is about a close-knit and gutsy group of midwives who work – sometimes against some pretty huge odds – in tandem with a group of nuns at Nonnatus House.

Despite the show’s unusual subject, it quickly gained an audience after the first series – alternately heart-warming, sad, riveting, poignant – and is now shooting its sixth. The series has reportedly become a huge earner for the BBC, and the five series have been sold to 200 countries.

A trailer for the first series, starring Jessica Raine:

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave, who is recalling her life as a young midwife, the most well-known actors in the series are Jenny Agutter as the head nun in Nonnatus House and the comedian Miranda Hart.

Members of the cast will apparently be shooting one of the episodes for the latest series in 1962 apartheid South Africa. Little is known about the content of the episode. However, the writer of the series, Heidi Thomas, was quoted as saying the segment – shooting for an estimated £1 million – would show how the nuns and midwives “rise to the challenge of supporting a small community in South Africa”.