Picture Shows: (L-R) Shelagh Turner (LAURA MAIN), Nurse Trixie (HELEN GEORGE), Nurse Lucille Anderson (LEONIE ELLIOTT), Valerie Dyer (JENNIFER KIRBY) – (C) Neal Street Productions – Photographer: Sophie Mutevelian

Call the Midwife is back for the 2019 Christmas special as nuns and midwives pack their bags for the Outer Hebrides, while the unlucky few get left behind to man the fort at Nonnatus House in Poplar. The critically-acclaimed and audience favorite will return with a special on Christmas Day 2019 followed by eight episodes in early 2020 (January 2020 on BBC1 and April 2020 on PBS).

For the forthcoming Christmas special, the nuns arrive on a remote, idyllic Scottish island, where the residents have a desperate need for nurses and midwives. “Exposed to the elements, they operate in bleak conditions with limited access to water and electricity to help their patients, just in time to reconvene in Poplar for Christmas,” the BBC announced. The BBC also released this first-look image, in which the midwives are having a very difficult bus trip.

(C) Neal Street Productions

Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas said: “After a magical Christmas experience in the Hebrides featuring wild seas, stormy skies and some very disobedient sheep, we return to the harsher reality of city life in 1965. Society is changing fast and in series nine we will see Nonnatus House shaken to its foundations.”

For series 9, which begins in January 1965 with the funeral of Winston Churchill, Nonnatus House will “enter a bold and innovative era” – but for the midwives, “the very fabric of their lives is jeopardized when Nonnatus itself comes under threat of demolition.”

While Miriam Margolyes will return as Mother Mildred in this year’s festive episode, also returning for the Christmas special and for series nine are Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne), Linda Bassett (Nurse Crane), Judy Parfitt (Sister Monica Joan), Fenella Woolgar (Sister Hilda), Ella Bruccoleri (Sister Frances), Helen George (Trixie), Laura Main (Shelagh Turner), Jennifer Kirby (Valerie), Leonie Elliott (Lucille), Stephen McGann (Dr Turner), Cliff Parisi (Fred), Annabelle Apsion (Violet), Georgie Glen (Miss Higgins), Max Macmillan (Timothy), Trevor Cooper (Sgt Woolf) and Daniel Laurie (Reggie).

Call the Midwife returns on Christmas Day on BBC1 and PBS.