The Royal is a British period medical drama, produced by Yorkshire Television (later part of ITV Studios), and broadcast on ITV from 2003 until its cancellation in 2011. The series is set in the 1960s and focuses on the lives of the staff at the fictional "St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital", a National Health Service hospital serving the fictional rural seaside town of Elsinby and its surrounding area. The programme began originally as a spin-off of ITV's period drama series Heartbeat and the first three series featured crossovers with Heartbeat and appearances by its cast members. From the start of the fourth series, the crossover elements were removed, and The Royal focussed on stories involving its own cast.
The series initially began with its cast including Ian Carmichael, Wendy Craig, Robert Daws and Amy Robbins, but gradually expanded with new actors taking the place of others as they left the programme; some taking over to only appear in one series. Much of the outdoor scenes were primarily shot within North Yorkshire, including within Whitby and Scarborough, with interior shots filmed at both The Leeds Studios and St Luke's Hospital, Bradford. The programme remained popular on television until its cancellation, generating its own spin-off, The Royal Today, with episodes later repeated on ITV3.
Premise
The Royal takes place within the fictional seaside town of Elsinby in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and focuses on the lives of the staff who work in St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital - a cottage hospital established by the ancestor of its hospital secretary, T. J. Middleditch, to serve its local community. Placed under the care of the National Health Service, the staff do their best to offer their patients care and treatment, including maintaining casualty facilities and operating theatres, while coping with their own lives. Like Heartbeat, episodes mainly focused on either one big story or two major storylines, medical problems, and an occasional side story, with overarching plotlines concerning the relationships and personal lives of the main characters. For the first three series, episodes featured crossovers with Heartbeat through some of its cast making appearances in plots as their respective, the most prominent of these being Bill Maynard, William Simons and Mark Jordon, but this element of the programme was later dropped.
The majority of the plots centred on medical emergencies or serious medical cases, and often featured moral dilemmas. The Royal largely avoided political topics, though the Vietnam War was briefly the subject of one episode, and its main themes were the conflict between progressive and conservative social ideals, and the ethical challenges and social changes faced by the hospital's staff, reflecting the setting in the 1960s. Like Heartbeat, the show had a number of anachronisms, such as the use of the expression "the glass ceiling"
Filming
Filming of the interior scenes of "St. Aidan's" used both The Leeds Studios and St Luke's Hospital, Bradford. Most of the exterior scenes were shot during the summer months at the Red Court building on Holbeck Road, South Cliff, Scarborough, as well as the nearby park area and Holbeck Clock Tower.[1][2][3] The remaining exterior scenes were filmed elsewhere in the North Riding of Yorkshire, including Whitby.
Zoie Kennedy as Meryl Taylor (series 1–5), a senior staff nurse and Cheriton's primary love interest.
Robert Daws as Dr Gordon Ormerod (series 1–8), a GP and anaesthetist who in series 4 married Dr Jill Weatherill (played by Daws' real-life wife). Their only biological child together, Jonathan, a baby on the show, became a lead doctor at the hospital as an adult, as featured in The Royal Today
Amy Robbins as Dr Jill Weatherill (series 1–8), a GP and a staunch promoter of maternal medicine, who in series 4 married Dr Gordon Ormerod (played by Robbins' real-life husband).
Linda Armstrong as Sister Brigid (series 1–8), a nursing administrator, ward sister and nun (née Aisling Donahue) who lives in a convent.
Francis Matthews as Dr James "Jim" Alway (series 1), Dr Cheriton's predecessor, seen only briefly.
Ian Carmichael as T. J. Middleditch (series 1–5, recurring thereafter), Hospital Secretary and Chairman of the Middleditch Trust, which helps to fund the hospital.
Wendy Craig as Matron (series 1–8), nursing administrator, nicknamed "Toffee" ever since airmen at the Royal Air Force Station she served at as a nurse during the Second World War decided that she was "toffee-nosed" (snobbish/stuck up).
Michelle Hardwick as Lizzie Hopkirk (series 1–8), receptionist and daughter of the hospital porter Ken Hopkirk; she was married when the series started, but her husband left her for another woman.
In 2007, ITV commissioned a daytime spin-off of The Royal, entitled The Royal Today. The spin-off focused on the same settings of the main show, but set in the present day with a new cast of characters. The show ran for one series in 2008 between 7 January to 14 March. The show was axed due to low ratings.[citation needed]
End of production
Speculation surrounding the future of both Heartbeat and The Royal began in 2009, when ITV announced on 4 March that a loss of £2.7 billion was forcing it to make cutbacks in employment numbers, the biggest of which were made at ITV Yorkshire Studios. Many raised concerns that the shows were to be axed, after reports were made to that effect in early January, though a spokesperson stated later that the production of the shows was simply "resting".[4] No official news was given that the show was axed, but like Heartbeat, the series ended with a cliffhanger surrounding one of its main characters, when the final episode was aired on 31 July 2011.[5][6]
