Over the past couple of years, Miranda Hart has performed a rare double whammy: she has starred in one of the most successful TV sitcoms (Miranda) and also in one of TV’s top dramas.
The latter, Call The Midwife, is now back for a second series after an acclaimed first run last year.
Hart, 40, who plays the lovable Camilla ‘Chummy’ Fortescue-Cholmondeley- Browne, says Heidi Thomas’ adaptation of Jennifer Worth’s memoirs about being a midwife in the East End of London during the 1950s has struck a chord with so many viewers.
“I think there is a warmth and a joy to Call The Midwife,” says Hart. “It’s about love really. It’s life-affirming as well seeing what women went through back then to bring a child into the world.”
The actress, who co-stars in Call The Midwife with Jennifer Raine, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Helen George and Bryony Hannah, says the sense of community appeals too.
“The nuns and the midwives and the East End, in general, were examples of community living at its best.
“That is probably how we are still meant to live, but we have moved away from that in the last 20 or 30 years.
We are constantly in communication today on the internet, phones, email, but perhaps it’s not the true communication we need and crave. Perhaps there is a yearning for a simpler life.”
Hart continues that, “There is something about that era of post-war Britain that feels celebratory. Everyone was happy to be alive.
“They were at the cutting-edge of change, a new world. Maybe that joy was part of what audiences loved about the first series.”
She also believes viewers loved the characters.
“Jennifer Worth painted such a fantastic portrait of fascinating women, all so different, living a humble, simple and joyful life. And the adaptor Heidi Thomas put that on the screen perfectly. We were lucky that Chummy et al existed and did what they did to give us such good drama.”
At the end of the last series, Chummy wed her beloved PC Peter Noakes (Ben Caplan).
As the second series starts, Chummy is still in the honeymoon stage of her marriage.
“She is totally in love,” says Hart, “and more happy in herself and with her new friends at the nunnery.
“She is still in a world that is far, far removed from how she grew up, so it’s not always easy, but I like to think falling in love has made her feel secure.
“Really, she is in a new stage in her life and perhaps at a bit of a crossroads as to where to go and what to focus on.”
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Hart says Chummy has grown up since the first series.
“She fits in more now. She is more confident and competent at her work. There is a confidence to her. I deliberately didn’t stutter or break up sentences as much when I was learning the lines, as I did in the first series, because I think everything flows a bit easier for her now.
“She isn’t quite as shy or awkward. She is still in a completely different world to her family, but realises she has found her place in the world.”
Hart has relished being back on the set of Call The Midwife.
The only thing she has not really enjoyed about the role is “having to wear the ’50s tights”.
“Every morning I seem to get in a muddle putting them on, getting the line right at the back, laddering them within seconds. Me and the tights are not friends.”
Hart, who has no children herself, recounts her experience of working with babies on the series.
“The babies could have made me broody. They could have made me coo. They could have made me weep with how cute and fragile they are.
“But my experience has actually been one of either ‘Don’t drop him, Hart’ or ‘Oh great, now he’s weed into my gloves!’ ”
Perhaps there is a yearning for a simpler life.
Call The Midwife – TV1 Sunday
-The TV Guide is out every Thursday
