SERIES 7, EPISODE 2
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Here we are again with another ‘Call the Midwife’ episode from Series 7. This episode gives us a chance to showcase Lucille Anderson as her introduction was briefly handled in Series 7, Episode 1. 🙂
In the episode, Leonie Elliot as Lucille helps to deliver the baby of Sophie Austin as Marjory Chivvers who is a hairdresser. Unfortunately, she receives racist prejudice from Marjory’s mum Mae Stanton.
Maggie O’Neill guest stars as Mae Stanton in the episode. I heard Maggie O’Neill in the Big Finish audios of ‘Doctor Who’. She played Lysandra Aristedes with Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.
That was in the audios ‘Project: Destiny’, ‘Project Nirvana’, ‘Black and White’ and ‘Gods and Monsters’. Maggie also appeared in the ITV film adaptation of ‘Mansfield Park’ starring Billie Piper. 🙂
I’ve noticed how Maggie O’Neill tends to play ‘miserable’ characters or characters that have grudges against someone. It was very intriguing to see her play a character who’s racially-prejudiced against blacks.
The racist prejudice comes from her daughter Marjory having had a stroke following the delivery of her new-born baby. Mae Stanton lets out her anger and prejudice when she’s at the nursing clinic. 😐
Characters like Stephen McGann as Dr. Turner and Jennifer Kirby as Valerie are appalled by Mae’s open racism in that moment. I found it shocking especially when Lucille was in the room with her. 😐
I like how Lucille stands her ground and refuses not to give in to Mae’s words. She even demands Jenny Agutter’s Sister Julienne to put her back on the job when her feelings were being spared here.
Thankfully it works out fine as Lucille and Mae come to an understanding. Lucille is allowed to attend to Marjory when she’s in the recovery stages. She also encourages Marjory’s weak husband in this. 🙂
Paul Longley guest stars as Dennis, Marjory’s husband. Lucille encourages Dennis to stand up to Mae who always seems to put her down and to take charge of his wife’s recovery being prevented by Mae.
I like how the story is resolved and how the racial prejudice aspect is handled. It’s something I’m quite wary of when watching subject matters like that. I’m happy Lucille came out alright in the end.
The episode also has the Turners welcoming their super efficient au pair (a helper from a foreign country into their family). This happens to be a Hungarian woman, Nina Yndis as Magda, in the story.
It was funny how the Turners’ son Max Macmillan as Timothy seems rather taken with Magda. Laura Main as Shelagh is concerned about her staying with them whilst Dr. Turner isn’t too bothered here.
Meanwhile, Victoria Yeates as Sister Winifred is keen to have fathers be more involved in the care of their babies. She encourages a football-mad husband to be there at his child’s birth when it happens.
This football-mad husband happens to be Josef Davies as Allan Romaine. His wife is Bronte Barbe as Janet Romaine. Janet is upset that Allan seems to think his football is more important than his baby.
Thankfully, Allan does put his wife and child first when Janet’s about to go into labour. He helps with seeing to it that Janet’s baby gets delivered before Sister Winifred turns up in the back of their van. 🙂
It was funny when Sister Winifred took Linda Bassett’s Nurse Crane’s car without asking and the keys had been left in the ignition. Nurse Crane is so surprised to find that her car’s gone unexpectedly. 😀
It was even funnier when Trevor Cooper as Sgt. Woolf found Nurse Crane’s car abandoned after informing her to keep her car keys safe and secure. Clearly Nurse Crane didn’t do that this time round.
After attending to Allan and Janet’s baby, Sister Winifred returns to find the car with Nurse Crane waiting for her. Sister Winifred had to leave that car for a bit so that she can get past an obstruction.
Helen George as Trixie also tries to give a dinner party to her boyfriend Jack Hawkins as Christopher Dockerill at Nonnatus House. It’s not successful as Trixie would’ve liked, but it’s nothing disastrous. 🙂
Series 7, Episode 2 has been a solid episode to sit through. I like how the racial prejudice story for Lucille’s character was handled. Maggie O’Neill also gives a standout performance as Mae Stanton. 🙂
On Disc 1 of the Series 7 DVD of ‘Call the Midwife’, there’s the behind-the-scenes featurette ‘Au Pairs, Mothercraft & Racism’ to check out with cast and crew interviews.
‘Series 7, Episode 2’ rating – 8/10
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