Summary
- Sister Evangelina was written off Call The Midwife when Pam Ferris was no longer able to commute long distances.
- Sister Evangelina's death was pre-planned and tied up loose ends to avoid recasting. Her departure left fans heartbroken.
- Pam Ferris has taken a backseat in acting since leaving Call The Midwife.
As is common with long-running shows, Call The Midwife has had some cast changes during its run. In Season 3, the show lost a fan favorite, Jenny Lee, bidding farewell to Jessica Raine's character. Then, in Season 5, the period drama lost another dearly beloved character, Sister Evangelina. What seemed to be a long-awaited death was revealed to be a necessary decision.
Lasting for five seasons, Sister Evangelina was a recurring character in Call The Midwife. She was a member of the Order of Saint Raymond Nonnatus and a resident of Nonnatus House. Even though she wasn't quite herself leading up to her death, viewers still found it shocking to endure. But as the Sister Evangelina actor Pam Ferris would reveal, there was off-screen motivation behind the character's death.
Updated by Jordan Iacobucci on January 7, 2024: Call the Midwife has officially returned for Series 13, with a fourteenth and fifteenth already on the way. The new seasons allow viewers to finally reunite with fan-favorite characters like Jenny Agutter's Sister Julienne and Judy Parfitt's Sister Monica Joan. However, as exciting as the new series is for longtime fans, not every beloved character is returning, including Sister Evangelina, who has been absent from the series for a very long time.
Who Was Sister Evangelina on Call the Midwife?
- Sister Evangelina makes her first appearance in the series premiere of Call the Midwife, which aired in 2012.
- Sister Evangelina makes her final appearance in the Season 5 finale of Call the Midwife, which aired in 2016.
- Pam Ferris appears in a total of 36 episodes of Call the Midwife throughout the span of five seasons.
Evangelina's given name in Call the Midwife was Enid. She had a younger brother named Vincent and an unnamed older brother who had already died prior to the start of the first series. Sister Evangelina grew up in extreme poverty, which set her apart from her other Sisters-in-God.
In the very first episode, Sister Evangelina revealed that her brother, Vincent, was the first birth that she had ever witnessed. That was the event that set her on the Christian path and encouraged her to become a devout nun. It wasn't long before Sister Evangelina became a fan-favorite character on the long-running British drama.
The series followed Sister Evangelina through many adventures. For example, at the beginning of the series, Sister Evangelina intervenes when two policemen attempt to break up a fight between two women. However, the storyline about her health took up a great deal of the last two seasons of the show in which she appeared.
At the start of Season 4, Sister Evangelina began showing signs of poor health. More specifically, she pushed her food away at mealtimes, and when the nuns stood to pray in the chapel, she was seen supporting her back. Sister Julienne tried to persuade her to see a doctor, with Sister Monica Joan informing her that she would be dismissed from work if she refused.
Ultimately, after much arguing and persuasion, Sister Evangelina visited a female doctor and was subsequently diagnosed with fibroids. She was told that treatment requires a hysterectomy, which she then proceeded to have. In Season 5, Sister Julienne noticed Sister Evangelina was avoiding any movement of her left arm.
Sister Evangelina admitted she'd suffered a stroke two months after leaving the convent. In a dramatic twist that devastated Call The Midwife fans, Sister Evangelina died following a second stroke in the Season 5 finale, breaking the hearts of her fellow Sisters, nurses, and the community.
Why Did Pam Ferris Leave Call the Midwife?
Britain's incredible sitcom actors have been able to showcase their talents across everything from traditional family comedies to wartime farces.
Sister Evangelina was portrayed by Pam Ferris, a Welsh actress with several acting credits, including Ma Larkin in the ITV series, The Darling Buds of May. She also played the gardening sleuth Laura Thyme in Rosemary & Thyme and Miss Agatha Trunchbull in Matilda. Sister Evangelina's subsequent death was pre-planned to accommodate Ferris' permanent departure from the series. To tie up loose ends, her character was killed off to avoid recasting.
When questioned about her reasons for quitting Call The Midwife, Ferris commented at Yours.co.uk, "We filmed the first couple of series of Call The Midwife in North London, and that was a do-able train commute from my home in East Kent, although it still meant very early mornings and not getting home until eight or nine at night."
Ferris added, "But when the set moved to Surrey, I had no choice but to drive, and that took forever because the M25 was always jammed. I started staying in a hotel, but that meant I was never home and so [I] didn't get to see much of my husband or my two dogs — a Lurcher called Stanley and Elsie, a little Jack Russell. I tried to find a flat to rent so that my husband and dogs would be able to spend half the week with me, but I couldn't find anywhere that would take dogs."
In the end, it was family commitments that led to Pam Ferris' exit from Call The Midwife, which has been running for 12 seasons. Sister Evangelina left not a dry eye in the house upon her death — even if fans had seen it coming for a while.
