Call the Midwife (2012)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.guardian.co.uk)

Amusing drama marred by the political correctness of being a paean to the NHS - without ever deigning to explain the need for its existence. It also features clunky, expository dialogue along with a somewhat rose-tinted view of the UK lower class. This makes it all feel a bit too perfunctory for its own good - as if, curiously, it had not been drawn from the direct experience belied by the credits.

The series lacks insight into human nature; seeing people as merely exemplars of their class rather more than of their species. This lack of empathy is a great failing in a series that acts as if it actually had great feeling for others. Although a true story, it is not a very truthful one; the ultimate problem being its decided lack of a cultural context - which is merely taken as an assumed given. Despite the quality of the acting and the ever-present humor, one never feels for anyone here.

This is a world that does not exist; undermining the strength of the human spirit shown - a re-imagined past that is far more nostalgic than historically-accurate. This is the world in the abstract; lacking sufficient historical detail to convince - and sufficient context to justify the historical detail that is on show. Paradoxically, given its midwifery setting, this is a kind of dramatic stillbirth that is content merely to delight more than it saddens.

Here, Whites revise their own history to make sense of the cultural present; ie, the political correctness of pretending that one is not living in a declining culture because it lives very much in the past - exactly the same past, in fact, being re-imagined here. This series ultimately reflects an ethnic group that believes in its own specialness; a fallacy revealed by its lack of insight into that very belief, along with the implication that other cultures do not matter and, thus, only require scant mention in the dialogue.

However, like the tv-series that was, All Creatures Great and Small, an emphasis on giving birth elicits cheap tears from the audience; while melting the coldest of the cold. For no man that is born of a woman can resist the shedding of a tear for those newly-arrived in this world.

Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.co.uk) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.