Television series

Call the Midwife

Name: Call the Midwife
Genre: Drama, Medical, History
Released: 2012
Cast: Jenny Agutter, Vanessa Redgrave, Laura Main, Judy Parfitt, Stephen McGann

A gentle, deeply humane drama about nuns and nurses delivering babies in London's poorest postwar streets, tracking real medical and social change decade by decade. It's cosy and devastating in equal measure — births go wrong, poverty bites, and kindness keeps showing up anyway. Perfect for anyone who wants their heart warmed and occasionally wrung out.

TVMaze rating

8.1

If you liked this

All Creatures Great and Small2020

Another memoir-based ensemble drama built on small kindnesses and a vanished way of life, swapping midwifery for veterinary work in the Yorkshire Dales — same warmth, same gentle stakes.

But Considerably lower-stakes; if you watch Call the Midwife for the medical drama, this leans more toward pastoral comfort.

Lark Rise to Candleford2008

A rural Victorian village drama carried almost entirely by its women, with the same instinct for finding drama in class, community and everyday survival rather than plot twists.

But Slower and more episodic; it can feel like not much happens across whole runs.

Home Fires2015no page yet

Women's Institute members holding a village together through WWII — the same texture of ordinary women doing extraordinary, unglamorous work under pressure.

But Cancelled after two series on a cliffhanger, which stings if you get attached.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Vera Drake2004no page yet

Same East End, same era, same questions about women's bodies and the law — just told with none of the softening.

Mike Leigh's devastating film about a backstreet abortionist in 1950s London sits in the exact same streets and decade as Call the Midwife, but refuses to look away from what the show only gestures at.

But It's heavy, unhurried and offers no comfort by the end — this is not a cosy Sunday watch.

Grantchester2014

A postwar English community drama with a strong moral centre and a rotating cast of local tragedies, wrapped around a gentle procedural spine.

But It's a crime show at heart, so the emotional register is more melancholic-detective than nurturing-community.

Land Girls2009no page yet

Wartime women thrown together by circumstance and duty, mixing hard labour with romance and grief in a way that echoes the found-family feel of the nurses' home.

But Shorter, scrappier production; it doesn't have the same budget or polish.

Foyle's War2002

For the history lover in you — meticulous period detail and a quietly moral protagonist navigating a Britain still reeling from war.

But It's a detective drama first, so you lose the ensemble intimacy and the birth-by-birth emotional rhythm.

Bramwell1995no page yet

A pioneering female doctor fighting Victorian medicine and prejudice to treat London's poor — the same fury at injustice, dressed in an earlier century.

But Dated production values and a single-lead structure rather than an ensemble.

The Village2013no page yet

A working-class English community across a century, unflinching about hardship but still finding tenderness — for when you want the harder edges without the nuns.

But Bleaker and less redemptive; there's less comfort to balance the misery.

Mrs. Wilson2018no page yet

Another true-memoir-based British period piece about a woman uncovering hidden histories, with Ruth Wilson playing her own real grandmother.

But It's a tighter, twistier mystery rather than an ongoing communal drama — a very different shape.

Peaky Blinders2013

Both mine the same seam of British poverty and community loyalty after the wars; one plays it as grace, the other as swagger.

Swap the maternity home for the Shelby family's gin dens and you're still in Britain's working-class postwar wreckage, just filmed as operatic gangster myth instead of gentle realism.

But Violent, stylised and often historically loose — the tonal opposite of Call the Midwife's sincerity.

One Born Every Minute2010no page yet

It's the nonfiction mirror of the show's central subject: the same profession, the same intensity, minus the period costumes and score.

A real fly-on-the-wall documentary filmed in an actual NHS maternity ward — the unscripted, unglamorous version of every birth Call the Midwife dramatises with candles and string sections.

But There's no story arc or characters to love — just real strangers, real fear, and real relief.