The Casebook

Stephen McGann, better known to Call the Midwife viewers as Dr. Patrick Turner, takes us on a powerful, personal journey as he travels the country to meet midwives, nuns and doctors who experienced the joys and dangers of childbirth in the 1950s and 60s and to explore the real life social and medical changes which affected childbirth of the period.

From meeting a midwife who trained with the author Jennifer Worth with the nuns in the East End of London, Stephen's journey will introduce him to an expert on the history of midwifery, a photographer who chronicled the appalling social conditions of the time and a nun who became a midwife and subsequently left orders in order to have a child of her own. He also revisits the home where he was born, to tell his very own Call the Midwife story.

Shot in an observational style, using archive footage, expert interviews and moving personal stories the film tracks the birth of the NHS, highlights the beginnings of a modern multicultural Britain, the impact of contraception on the sexual revolution and how scientific medical advances changed the way we live.

With clips from all five seasons of Call the Midwife (as well as exclusive behind the scenes footage and clips from the new Season Six) the film also features an in-depth interview with series creator and writer Heidi Thomas on how she finds and adapts the genuine human stories that underpin every episode of Call the Midwife.

This is the story of the dramatic social and medical changes that affected home life and childbirth in the UK in the 1950s and 60s.