Call the Midwife season 8 cast confirmed; who’s not on it?

Call the Midwife season 8

Is Jack Ashton leaving Call the Midwife for its upcoming eighth season? The BBC has just announced their official cast for the upcoming batch of episodes, and suspiciously, the man who plays Tom is not on it.

Here is the list of many of the returning faces for season 8: Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne), Linda Bassett (Nurse Crane), Judy Parfitt (Sister Monica Joan), Helen George (Trixie), Laura Main (Shelagh Turner), Victoria Yeates (Sister Winifred), Jennifer Kirby (Valerie), Leonie Elliott (Lucille), Stephen McGann (Dr Turner), Cliff Parisi (Fred), Annabelle Apsion (Violet), Max Macmillan (Timothy), Trevor Cooper (Sgt Woolf) and Daniel Laurie (Reggie). Meanwhile, newcomers include (per a BBC press release) “Fenella Woolgar (Victoria & Abdul, Harlots and War & Peace), who plays Sister Hilda, Ella Bruccoleri (Genius: Picasso, The Last Kingdom) as postulant Sister Frances and Georgie Glen (Waterloo Road, Damned) as Miss Higgins, the surgery’s new receptionist.”

To go along with all of this, be prepared to see Miriam Margolyes in both the Christmas Special and upcoming season 8 premiere as Sister Mildred, a “forthright and indefatigable sister from the Order” who arrives at Nonnatus House with many Chinese orphans. Her story will have a big impact during that episode, as will the return of Helen George to the series after her maternity leave at the end of season 7.

In getting back to Ashton, though, his departure would not come as an altogether great surprise for many different reasons. For starters, the death of Barbara (Charlotte Ritchie) during season 7 means that he has less of a reason to be tethered to Poplar and this particular community moving forward. To go along with that, he may actually be interested in going somewhere else and getting a fresh start. Departures or something that many people have to be quite used to with this show by now, largely because over the years we have lost many different performers including Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, and Emerald Fennell. Losing Ritchie and then Ashton only would continue that trend further.

Call the Midwife, following its Christmas Special, will premiere in season 8 in the UK in early 2019. Meanwhile, this season will likely begin in America in the spring. Season 7 is set to conclude on PBS this Sunday.

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