Sisters of The Serengeti

'Piglet, it can't fail.'

'I think it sort of already has.'

'Nonsense. Those BBC bods will jump at it.'

'In a windowless room, I hope.'

'I'd appreciate some support, my porcine buckawaynerooney.'

'Alright…tell me again.'

'Dear, oh dear. Right. Call The Midwife.'

'Yes.'

'All finished.'

'Well, not quite. I heard they're doing a short prequel series, followed - '

'Yes, yes, yes, but in its current formica. You know, streets of Poplar, postwar, the nuns and nurses of Heynonnynoh House.'

'Nonnatus.'

'Whatever that means.'

'Latin. Now we are nine.'

'Ooh, I'll be needing more than nine of 'em for my purposes.'

'Which are?'

'Translating Poplar to the Serengeti, where they will go about their birthing business under the curious, not to say predatory eyes of the local fauna.'

'Oh…right.'

'Yes indeed…so you'll have Sister Fantabulosa talking Doreen from Balls Pond Road through the discomfiting vagaries of Braxton Hicks contractions in the path of an oncoming cheetah.'

'Hence your title - '

'Maul the Midwife - precisement, to quote Hercule Potpourri.'

'And they will be? Those poor women?'

'No, no, no - or will they? That's the whole point, my troughligate pal. People will keep tuning in to find out. You know, like The Hungary Games. Folk kept following that on the off-chance of seeing some hapless Magyar spatter his goulash.'

'I don't think that was - '

'Besides, it'll set things up nicely for the sequel.'

'Sequel?'

'Cull The Midwife.'

'So it will happen.'

'Of course not. It'll all be done with that computer jiggery-pokery.'

'Ah, CG - '

'CeeBeeBee, exactly. I mean, I won't actually have Sister Pontefractotum being dragged into the scrub by a brunch-fixated lion - or will I?'

'I think it all rather departs from the spirit of the original.'

'Nonsense, Piglet. Dedicated toilers doing what they do in impossible conditions. Besides, the four-pawed nosh-meisters of the Serengeti will be a symbol.'

'Of?'

'Take your pick…indifferent local council, compassion-free Health Board. Figurative, you see. What poets call a metal-fork.'

'And what if it does go wrong? If one of the Poplar team actually does get - ?'

'Enter Sequel Two. Pall The Midwife. A 24/7 Serengeti-based squad of elite undertakers with a pack of hounds trained to sniff out cadavers ponging of Eau de Dettol. Motto: Where Beagles Dare. In they swoop in with no thought - '

'Ah. No thought. Sequel trois.'

'Sequel what?'

'Just thinking of Monsieur Poirot encore une fois.'

'I tried that once. Tasted awful, even with ballistic vinegar.'