Our take
The first special to leave Poplar swaps snow for South African heat, and it pays off in scale and spectacle while keeping the show's moral seriousness about clean water, polio and who gets care. It is the least Christmassy of the early specials once the plane lands, but the human stories are strong and Sinead Cusack is a fine addition. Christmas Day 2016's most-watched programme, and a bold change of scene.
What happens
Poplar is enjoying a white Christmas when an SOS from the Mother House interrupts: Hope Clinic, a tiny mission hospital in South Africa linked to the order, is threatened with closure after the death of the nun who ran it. Sister Julienne takes a working party out to assess its future: Sister Winifred, Trixie, Barbara, Nurse Crane, Dr Turner, Shelagh, Fred and Tom Hereward. In the Eastern Cape, a hundred miles from any other hospital, they find the water supply running dangerously low, no electricity and the clinic's own doctor, Myra Fitzsimmonds, struck down by a mystery illness. Their biggest obstacle is a neighbouring white farmer who refuses to let a new water pipe cross his land. The team complete a polio immunisation programme, make journeys to save lives in remote places, deliver a baby in a ditch, break the news of a phantom pregnancy, and Trixie performs a caesarean by candlelight. In their attempt to save the clinic some of their own lives change for good: Tom proposes to Barbara with a blade of grass, and she accepts.
Can the kids watch it?
No BBFC rating found. It was a Christmas Day family-time drama, but it includes births, illness and some sad stories, so best for older children watching with a grown-up.
Cast and crew
Starring
- Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne
- Linda Bassett as Nurse Phyllis Crane
- Judy Parfitt as Sister Monica Joan
- Helen George as Trixie Franklin
- Bryony Hannah as Sister Mary Cynthia
- Laura Main as Shelagh Turner
- Emerald Fennell as Patsy Mount
- Charlotte Ritchie as Nurse Barbara Gilbert
Guest stars
- Victoria Yeates as Sister Winifred
- Jack Ashton as Tom Hereward
- Stephen McGann as Dr Patrick Turner
- Cliff Parisi as Fred Buckle
- Kate Lamb as Delia Busby
- Annabelle Apsion as Violet Buckle
- Francois Coertze as S.A.P.S Sergeant
- Dries Botha as S.A.P.S Constable
- Andrea Dondolo as Sister Gertrude
- Sinead Cusack as Dr Myra Fitzsimmonds
- Danny Keogh as Mr Starke
- Vanessa Redgrave as Voice of Mature Jennifer Worth
Writer
- Heidi Thomas
Director
- Syd Macartney