Vanessa Redgrave’s portrayal of Jennifer Worth in the Call The Midwife Christmas special was a “fabulous” tribute, according to the show’s creator Heidi Thomas.

The Oscar-winning actress, who has voiced the midwife since the drama began in 2012, finally appears on screen for the first time as the older Jenny, whose memoirs inspired the BBC show.

Vanessa Redgrave
(Lauren Hurley/PA)

“It was fabulous,” Heidi told Radio Times. “It felt like we’d come full circle, which was really lovely.”

“I wanted to include the mature Jennifer, who was a friend of mine, in this little vignette at Christmas – which beautifully bookends the whole thing.”

Although Jenny died before the series aired, Heidi sought to bring touches of her into the festive episode, which airs on BBC One on Christmas Day.

Vanessa Redgrave and Ronald Pickup in Call The Midwife
Vanessa as Jennifer Worth, with Ronald Pickup as husband Philip (BBC/Neal Street Productions/Lawrence Cendrowicz)

Heidi revealed: “We have a brilliant relationship with the Worth family. I will always run any pertinent storylines by them – not because we have to, but because I’m very fond of Philip, Jennifer’s widower – and they actually lent us Jennifer’s jewellery – her pearls and her rings – and the chair that she used to sit in to write her Christmas cards.”

“We reconstructed this sitting room and we had Jennifer’s chair and Vanessa wore Jennifer’s pearls. She had these very distinctive rings with sort of dark opals surrounded by sapphires on one hand and diamonds on the other.”

She added: “I think Jennifer herself was interesting because she wasn’t possessive over the books. She realised that I would have to do a lot of work to make it into drama. But then what happened was, because she died in such an untimely manner, we made a point of making her daughters and widower very welcome on set. And they’ve become a sort of fixture now.”