The Royal

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The Royal
TheRoyalTitles.JPEG
The Royal intro.
Genre Medical drama
Starring Julian Ovenden
Zoie Kennedy
Robert Daws
Amy Robbins
Wendy Craig
Ian Carmichael
Opening theme"Somebody Help Me" by The Spencer Davis Group, sung by Michael Starke
Ending theme"Somebody Help Me" (instrumental) by The Spencer Davis Group
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series8
No. of episodes87 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time60 minutes
Production company ITV Studios
Original release
Network ITV
Release19 January 2003 (2003-01-19) 
31 July 2011 (2011-07-31)
Related
Heartbeat
The Royal Today

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.

Contents

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 the Heartbeat cast making appearances in plots on The Royal, the most prominent of these being Bill Maynard, William Simons and Mark Jordon, but this element of the programme was dropped after the third series of The Royal.

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.

Cast and characters

Main cast and characters

Episode list

Ratings

Below is the list of ratings of The Royal, giving an overall result for each series.[ citation needed ]

SeriesYearRankAverage audience share
1200310th10.12 m
2200311th7.16 m
32003–200413th9.17 m
42004–200512th8.49 m
5200610th7.93 m
6200711th7.24 m
72008–200915th4.91 m
82009–201115th4.62 m (incl. ITV1+1)
Overall rating12th7.45 m

The Royal Today

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]

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References

  1. "HEARTBEAT– The Royal". Sykesssillysite.co.uk. Archived from the original on 13 June 2010.
  2. "Geograph:: Red Court / The Royal, Esplanade, South... © Terry Robinson".
  3. "Historic St Luke Hospital buildings are demolished". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. 22 October 2010. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  4. "Heartbeat and The Royal future in doubt: SIGN THE PETITIONS HERE – Local". Scarborough Evening News. 7 March 2009. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
  5. "The Royal". tv.com. Archived from the original on 6 October 2011. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  6. "The Royal: Goodbye Mr Rose". 2 August 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2016.