Call the Midwife’s Helen George aims to really deliver now she can finally get her lips on dishy co-star Olly Rix.
Covid rules meant there was always something between the show’s lovers – a plastic screen.
Now Helen is looking forward to actual kisses between their characters, Trixie and Matthew, in the 12th series, set in 1968.
She said: “It’s so nice now restrictions have lifted. We can actually get close, hug and do proper acting. It’s two years into our relationship and we’re like, ‘nice to meet you, how do we do this?’ It’s so awkward.”
Creator Heidi Thomas revealed: “Something interesting and rather wonderful will happen for Trixie this series. She has big news coming up.”
Speaking at the BFI & Radio Times TV Festival Helen, 39, in the drama since it launched in 2012, said not having to be two metres from her co-stars meant it was easier to play the role convincingly.
Trixie will next be seen in this year’s Christmas special, having bowed out of the last run halfway through as Helen took maternity leave for her second baby.
Heidi hinted the BBC drama could continue until 1976, when the real Nonnatus nuns moved to Birmingham, and beyond.
The new series will have its first health visitor and ventouse delivery.
Set in 1968, it will also be heavily influenced by Enoch Powell’s divisive anti-immigration speech - which saw him ejected from the shadow cabinet.
Heidi previously explained: “The first episode of the new series coincides with Enoch Powell’s famous speech about rivers of blood, which did change the way people of different cultures and ethnicities act with one another, and we felt we couldn’t ignore that.”
On the show’s new arrival - not yet cast - she explained: “We do have a new nun joining us, Sister Veronica, who arrives in the first episode.
"Sister Veronica is going to be our very first health visitor, she’ll be helping us steer through the policies that were new at the time - she’s very involved in what we call preventative health, for example nutrition and supporting families.”
Thomas said that “vacuum extraction” will be demonstrated for the first time - with an episode in which the team are sent on a training course.
She added: “Whether Doctor Turner can afford to buy a ventouse machine is another matter. It might be like the incubator and need fund-raising.”
The Christmas special will also bring a return of actress Liz White as Rhoda Mullucks, whose daughter Susan was a victim of the thalidomide scandal.
Thomas said: “We meet Susan again at the age of six coming to terms with artificial limbs. We see the impact that has on her parents.
"They’re right at the heart of everything because their story enables us to do what we’re good at - it’s about humanity, endurance and what love can do.”
