Crying out for grown-up 演劇? Once more, the midwives 配達する: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last 週末's TV

• e-mail

Call The Midwife

率ing:

Mr Selfridge

率ing:

What a 確信して writer Heidi Thomas is. She knows that the nine million テレビ視聴者s watching Call The Midwife (BBC1) are not only television’s biggest Sunday night audience, but also its most sophisticated ― and she 配達するs storylines for adults.

While ITV is 供給するing knockabout celebrity 質問（する） fun with All 星／主役にする Family Fortunes, and BBC2 is doing kids’ TV for the middle-老年の on 最高の，を越す Gear, Thomas is making a heartbreaking 強襲，強姦 on our emotions, 偽装するd with Sixties nostalgia.

Thomas is both creator and writer of the series, which 開始する，打ち上げるd three years ago and was 奮起させるd by the memoirs of a midwife in the 戦後の East End of London, Jennifer 価値（がある）.?

Scroll 負かす／撃墜する for ビデオ?

星／主役にするs: Call The Midwife's?Emerald Fennell, Charlotte Ritchie, Helen George and Linda Bassett

Three dozen episodes later, all 価値（がある）’s 初めの storylines have been used up, but there seems no end to the multi-層d inventiveness of the 現在の 陰謀（を企てる）s.

Other shows might be content to 選ぶ a 選び出す／独身 主題 each week. Call The Midwife 得る，とらえるs a fistful and plaits them ingeniously. Last night 焦点（を合わせる）d on difficulties for London’s deaf community, alcoholism, prejudice against fathers in the birthing room, and society’s blindness to the 存在 of lesbian couples.

The thread that really stung, like a whiplash at the end of the story, （機の）カム from the most innocuous subplot. An expectant mother was wracked by morning sickness and struggling to care for her toddler, while her husband was serving time in Wormwood Scrubs.

This was 1960. Hyperemesis gravidarum, the same 条件 which has laid low the Duchess of Cambridge in both her pregnancies, was regarded by many nurses as a trivial 条件, brought on by 神経s. But as the midwives’ pet GP 発言／述べるd, one 麻薬 company was working on a pill for it.

The 指名する of the 医薬 was saved for the final moments, as the 感謝する mother 約束d to tell all her friends about this wonderdrug. It was called Thalidomide.

Other shows would have taken the horrid 関わりあい／含蓄 of this word and ground it in our 直面するs. Thomas 信用d us to know what it meant, and let our imaginations do the 残り／休憩（する）.

Other shows might be content to 選ぶ a 選び出す／独身 主題 each week. Call The Midwife 得る，とらえるs a fistful and plaits them ingeniously

A fifth 一連の Call The Midwif e has been （売買）手数料，委託（する）／委員会／権限d. Thalidomide became 悪名高い for the 味方する-影響s it 原因（となる）d in babies, 含むing 厳しく stunted 四肢s ― the first births of these babies seem 運命にあるd to feature in the stories next year.

Because Thomas knows her テレビ視聴者s can 耐える these blows, she isn’t afraid to use humour too. This is not a trite 装置 ― it’s 簡単に the natural human reaction to adversity. The harder life gets, the more we have to laugh.

So Miranda Hart as Chummy Noakes made a welcome re-入り口 to the show, carting her mother’s ashes around in a cake tin. Chummy 手配中の，お尋ね者 to scatter the remains where Mama had been happiest ― but that might 証明する difficult in the food hall at Fortnum & Mason’s.

一方／合間 Trixie was fighting her wrinkles with a facemask of whipped egg whites. Smothered in meringue and with a ciggie smouldering in the middle of her 直面する, she looked like a 放射性の birthday cake.

You won’t find any homemade beauty 治療s at the make-up 反対する in Mr Selfridge (ITV). Like the show itself, everything on 陳列する，発揮する is professionally 製造（する）d and elegantly 一括d ― though it isn’t half as 効果的な.

The characters in Mr Selfridge are like dolls. They 行為／法令／行動する out their 演劇s and romances, but they aren’t doing it because they are alive ― this is an imaginary world, not nostalgia but 衣装 melodrama.

The characters in Mr Selfridge are like dolls. They 行為／法令／行動する out their 演劇s and romances, but they aren’t doing it because they are alive ― this is an imaginary world, not nostalgia but 衣装 melodrama

That knowledge takes the danger out of the story. Temperamental window dresser Henri Leclair has 消えるd from the show, 素早い行動d away for a 残り／休憩（する） cure after he was 打ち勝つ by shellshock and 不景気. 一方／合間, Mr Grove’s inconvenient wife, Doris, has been flattened by a lorry.

< font style="font-size:1.2em">We know they’re all 権利 really ― just dolls, 支援する in their boxes.

So there was no 原因（となる） for alarm when Harry Selfridge’s wild daughter, Violette, started waving her silk scarf like a 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する as she raced along in her boyfriend’s open-最高の，を越す car.

That’s how Twenties 最高の-celeb Isadora Duncan died: her scarf got wrapped around an axle and broke her neck. We weren’t worried, though ― unlike Call The Midwife, Mr Selfridge 簡単に isn’t real.