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Inside the filming of Call the Midwife's emotional final episode with cast and crew in tears

Fans are steeling themselves for the last episode of seires 15 of Call the Midwife which contains a birth, and wedding and a funeral

[Call the Midwife series 15]

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There are big changes afoot for all the regulars in Call the Midwife(Image: BBC / Neal Street Productions / Olly Courtney)

Call the Midwife show-runner Heidi Thomas has told how the upcoming final episode of series 15 left her weeping more than any of the other 138 instalments she has made.

And she also revealed that, by the time series 16 makes it to the screen in a few years time, Nonnatus House will have been replaced by a community hospital. I shed more tears during the making of that episode than any other, she admitted. I thought, Am I crying because of the story or am I crying because its our last episode for a while? In the end, I think its a mixture of everything.

The show is taking a break from BBC1 for the first time since 2012 to allow for the making of a three-part prequel series, set during the war, and a movie featuring the regular cast, set in 1972, which is likely to be filmed in Australia.

[Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter)]

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Sister Julienne has accepted that Nonnatus House wil close when funding stops(Image: BBC / Neal Street Productions / Olly Courtney)

[I wept buckets at Call the Midwife last night but the real heartbreak is still to come]

OPINION

So when the final scene for the current run, set in 1971, was being filmed, it all got a bit emotional. Virtually all of the actors are in that scene and people just started to cry, Heidi told Radio Times. I was crying, Helen George was crying, and then all of a sudden everybody was really sobbing. More than one pair of false eyelashes came adrift. I thought, I dont know how were going to get through today, because the whole day was about filming that last scene.

She says the upset comes from not knowing what the future holds for the show, although she has promised that a 16th series, set in 1973 or 1974, will follow. It was quite a profound moment because were parting company for a while, she explained. But we also got to look back down from the top of the mountain and think, What a long way weve climbed.

The stories certain to feature in this Sundays series finale include Rosalind and Cyrils shotgun wedding, Sister Veronicas decision over whether to return to the sisterhood, Trixies announcement that shes leaving for a new job at a private clinic and Sister Monica Joans final journey from Nonnatus House.

[Sister Catherine (Molly Vevers), Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt)]

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Sister Catherine (Molly Vevers) is doing her best to care for Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) who has kidney failure(Image: BBC)

When series 16 finally hits the screen - perhaps not until 2029 - Poplar will look quite different. Changes will have taken place, but the change itself is not destructive. Its nourishing, Heidi insisted. Im exploring the notion of a community hospital. They were big in the 70s and I was familiar with one in urban Liverpool; you would go there to see the GP or have your x-ray. By the end of the 1980s, theyd been phased out but theyre bringing them back now because its a model that works.

Helen, 41, has played Trixie since the very first episode, which chronicled the real-life arrival in Poplar of nurse Jennifer Worth, played by Jessica Raine, in 1957. She agreed that the dramas die-hard fans are going to have to steel themselves next weekend for all that is to come. "There's this scene, it sort of encompasses all of the characters that we've had on the show over the last 15 years," she explained. "And when I walked onto the set, I just sobbed, I sobbed like a baby. It was really emotional. So if I was a mess and I'm heart of steel then the audience will be a mess as well.

She said that tears were flowing because it felt like the end of an era. It is just a pause because we know its coming back, she added. But it wont be the same, with different characters leaving and whatever.

Laura Main, who plays nurse and mother Shelagh Turner, agreed that the shock caused by the shows hiatus was real. Weve had rare and lovely stability for 15 years, she sighed. Weve never had to be upset at the end before.

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