‘Call the Midwife’ season 6, episode 5: Jennifer Kirby on Valerie Dyer’s challenges
Sunday night’s “Call the Midwife” will be an episode that looks to execute a wide array of different tasks — but one of the most important ones was to introduce a new key player at Nonnatus House. With Patsy Mount gone indefinitely to care for her ailing father, this left a whole to be filled at the famed establishment — and it just so happens that one Valerie Dyer is there to film it. She already had a job in the region, but she applied for the midwife job and was officially hired on this past episode. She’ll be bringing with her a unique set of skills to the gig, but one thing that she’ll realize almost right away is that while these are useful, she’s not a carbon-copy of many of the other women at Nonnatus in the slightest.
In speaking a little bit about her cultural and geographical differences from some of the other characters in a new interview with the Express, Jennifer Kirby passed along the following message:
“Because she’s from the East End, she’s not like the other girls – she has a different accent and thinks they’ll judge her for that, worries that maybe she won’t fit in, all that sort of stuff. But it’s nice to see her quickly realize that what brings them together is that they’re all nurses. Their training defines them, not where they’re from … [In terms of personality the midwives] are all kind of immaculately reserved, whereas Valerie sometimes speaks before she thinks and is quite an emotional person, but luckily she fits in and is welcomed.”
The thing about working as a midwife on this show in general is that there is this hope that you receive a warm, friendly welcome and nothing is awkward for you by any means. The other characters are going to want for you to feel like a natural part of the world — you’re all in this together to try and help people, so it doesn’t make a lick of sense if you aren’t getting along.
We’ll have an even better sense of how Valerie is faring tomorrow, when we post our full review for the “Call the Midwife” episode over at the link here. Be on the lookout for that! (Photo: BBC.)