Call the Midwife continues to perform well for BBC One

Call the MidwifeBBC One‘s smash-hit new drama Call the Midwife continued to attract strong ratings last night while World War One drama Birdsong concluded on the channel slightly down from its premier last week.

Call the Midwife was rewarded with a second season last week following its critical acclaim and high ratings – by the point of renewal only two episodes had aired. The drama is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth and has been adapted for the BBC by Heidi Thomas whose other hits include Cranford and Upstairs Downstairs. The cast is led by Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Miranda Hart and Jessica Raine. Last night’s third episode pulled in a hefty 8.7 million viewers at 8pm.

At 9pm the concluding part of the BBC’s adaptation of the Sebastian Faulks novel Birdsong had 5.3 million viewers. The drama, which starred Eddie Redmayne and Clemence Poesy, opened last week with 6m million viewers. Over on ITV1 and Dancing on Ice saw an improvement in its ratings with 7.5 million viewers for the main instalment and 5.8 million for its results show in which Corey Feldman was voted off, see more here >>. Sandwiched between the two editions was, as ever, African drama Wild at Heart which had 6.2 million viewers.