Unsurprisingly, the popular BBC show Call the Midwife features plenty of newborn babies, and the producer has revealed that the show will always include real babies instead of using fake replacements. Although this makes the show much more authentic, having 60 to 70 babies on set per season (according to producer Ann Tricklebank) has its own series of challenges! Find out what goes on behind the scenes with the newborn baby actors…
© Photo: BBCAround 60 - 70 newborns feature in the show every series
According to Ann, the show is never short of new parents offering for their newborn to appear in the series, and they will feature babies up to eight weeks old. Chatting to Radio Times, she said: "Lots of eager parents contact us and say, 'We are having a baby, would you like it on the show?' But the reality is that we need our newborns at very specific times due to the filming schedule, and so we get most of our babies through a specialist talent agency. We use babies up to about eight weeks old, and sometimes we have special demands, for example with regard to ethnicity. Or perhaps if we're covering a premature birth, we will need a tiny baby."
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She added: "We can't use babies of people who write in because the baby has to tie into the shooting schedule, not the other way round. Although of course, once the baby is on set, we have to comply with regulations about working time, and we are very happy to do that." The finale episode of Call the Midwife will air on Sunday, and will follow Elsie's court case. Speaking about the shocking storyline, Jennifer Kirby, who plays Valerie Dyer, told What's on TV: "Valerie's devastated. Everything she thought she knew about her life has been turned upside down. It's not just that Elsie has unwittingly hurt these women, it's also the fact that Val has been lied to for a long time. The person she trusts most in the world hasn't been truthful."
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