American viewers couldn't get enough of the class snobbery and grandeur of Downton Abbey. But will the misery of the East End's post-war slums prove quite as appealing when Call The Midwife becomes the latest British drama to cross the Atlantic?
The series, about a group of midwives in 1950s London, became BBC1's most popular new drama for more than a decade. It has now been snapped up for a Sunday night prime-time slot by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which scored record ratings when it broadcast Downton Abbey.
American executives believe that the themes of nursing and childbirth, set against a gritty period backdrop, will translate to US viewers despite the lack of glamorous gowns and high-born scheming which has made Downton Abbey an international hit. Adapted by Heidi Thomas from Jennifer Worth's memoirs, the series stars Jessica Raine as Jenny Lee, a young midwife who is attached to an order of nursing nuns and must navigate the teeming East End streets and a culture very different from the English countryside where she was raised.
READ MORE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/midwives-bicycle-across-the-pond-in-downtons-wake-7946860.html
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