Call the Midwife Christmas special

Be honest, if you could choose the perfect guests for your Christmas Day dinner table, who would you invite? The odd politician perhaps?

Maybe a sporting icon or famous raconteur, a witty author and gorgeous Hollywood star? Our list would feature an array of names, but no matter who was shuffled in and out, one would definitely be on it: Miriam Margolyes.

She may be 80 years old but she’s still very much the life and soul of the party. Just look at how she had This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby in stitches by breaking wind during an ad break, and her cheeky response after a hysterical Phillip told viewers about it: “you outed me!”

Given her astonishing and varied career, it’s no surprise that she’s not shy about, well, anything.

Born in 1941, Miriam started her acting career in her 20s and was a Cambridge Footlights performer. She made her TV debut in 1963 on the long-running student quiz University Challenge, and dipped a toe into the world of movies with her first role in A Nice Girl Like Me, all the while gaining a reputation as a voice-over artist, thanks to her versatility.

In the 1970s, she supplied all the female characters’ voices in the Japanese series Monkey, and starred alongside Ted Ray and Kenneth Williams in the Radio 2 series The Betty Witherspoon Show, before landing her first major film role in the saucy comedy Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers.

So far, so unremarkable, but with the 1980s came a slew of roles in big-hitting movies, including Reds and Yentl, as well an adaptation of Dickens’ Little Dorrit, starring Alec Guinness.

Away from film and TV, Miriam partnered with Sonia Fraser to co-write and perform the one-woman show, Dickens’ Women, in which she played 21 women and two men from the Victorian author’s novels.

She returned to the big screen for a small but memorable role in Martin Scorsese’s 1993 romance The Age of Innocence, winning the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Mrs Mingott.

Miriam won over a new army of younger fans as the doughty Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter franchise, and featured opposite Geoffrey Rush in the Golden Globe-winning film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

Plum roles in the original version of West End hit musical Wicked and Samuel Beckett’s Endgame demonstrated Miriam’s acting chops, before turning her hand to documentary-making with the 2016 series The Real Marigold Hotel. It followed eight celebrities who wanted a taste of retirement in India, but far from putting her feet up, Miriam is as busy as ever.

As well as penning her autobiography, This Much Is True, and co-starring with Helen Monks in the Radio 2 series Charlotte and Lillian, Miriam has also been a part of period drama Call the Midwife, playing the lovely Mother Mildred.

The 11th season gets underway in this festive special, set in December 1966. It promises to be a memorable Yuletide holiday at Nonnatus House, as Lucille and Cyril (played by Leonie Elliott and Zephryn Taitte) prepare for their upcoming winter wedding.

Meanwhile, the team are faced with their busiest Christmas Day ever, as the maternity home is filled with expectant and sometimes anxious mothers-to-be, each with their own challenging case. Luckily Mother Mildred is on hand to support everyone.

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