Call The Midwife star Jessica Raine: Fans always come up to me in the Ladies' loos

Jessica Raine in Call The Midwife

Call The Midwife star Jessica Raine has said she is constantly stopped by fans - in the toilets.

Rada-trained Raine, 30, shot to fame last year playing Jenny Lee in the hit BBC1 drama, set in the 1950s in London's East End.

The actress, who returns in the second series on Sunday, told the Radio Times: "I've never experienced anything like that wave of attention before.

"I was appearing in The Changeling at the Young Vic in London at the end of last year and getting public transport every day.

"Overnight, I found myself being stared at on the Tube. You start to look behind you or think, 'Is there something on my face?' Thank God I really love the show - can you imagine what it would be like if I didn't?"

Raine added: "The most common place I get stopped by fans is the ladies'.

"If there's a queue outside, you're trapped because you need to go. But they're very good bonding places - you always end up having great conversations in the loo."

The hit drama, based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, landed a second series just two episodes into its run after record audiences of almost 10 million viewers.

Raine said that she was "initially worried" that Call The Midwife would be a "chocolate-box, Sunday-night drama" but that it was saved by "gritty" elements.

She said viewers would find her alter-ego has become more "confident" and "even rather bossy" in the second series.

The actress said of filming scenes with babies: "This time, Miranda (Hart) got a wee-er, and I got a poo-er...In the Christmas special, during the birth scene at the beginning, the baby decided to poo on the lovely girl giving birth.

"Because we needed to get the take, we just had to keep going as if it was the most wonderful thing on Earth!"

Raine admitted: "I do go through phases of feeling broody. When the babies are there, I go gaga over them and everyone says, 'You're broody'.

"I certainly love getting to know the babies if I'm going to be working with them. I must admit during the last series, I fell in love with one. I could have taken him home," she joked.

This year, Raine also plays Emma Grayling in Phantom Of The Hex, the first episode in the new series of Doctor Who.

She said: "I hadn't realised what an institution Doctor Who is. I got offered the part and didn't think that much about it.

"Then you go on set and you see this blue police telephone box, and suddenly the weight of what you're doing hits home."

But she added: "It's a very different character and genre - you have to throw yourself into it and take it very seriously."

Raine's co-star Hart told the magazine that she relished the fact that her Midwife alter-ego was experienced with men.

"Normally, I'm the one fawning over the man, but in Call The Midwife I'm the experienced woman," she said.

"There's a bit in the new series where the girls and I go to see South Pacific at the cinema. And during the love scene, Chummy leans down and whispers to her friends: 'Yes girls, I know all about that.' I love it that sweet Chummy gets there first!"

PA