The Royal

The Royal is a British period medical drama produced by ITV and aired normally on Sundays in the early evening slot; episodes after 21 June 2009 were also broadcast on ITV HD. The show consisted of eight series of one-hour episodes and was broadcast on ITV from 2003 until the show was cancelled in 2011, with repeats continuing on ITV3. The show is set in the 1960s and focuses on the fictional "St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital", an NHS hospital serving the fictional rural seaside town of Elsinby and its surrounding area. The show is as a spin-off of ITV's period police drama series "Heartbeat" featuring characters from "Heartbeat" during the first three series, before dropping any "Heartbeat" character guest appearances. However Dr Omerod, Dr Wheatherill, Alun Morris, Lizzie Hopkirk and Sister Brigid all first appeared in "Heartbeat" and remained in "The Royal" until the end.
The show itself was shot within Whitby, Scarborough, City of Bradford and the North Riding of Yorkshire, and stars of "The Royal" included Ian Carmichael, Wendy Craig, Robert Daws, and Amy Robbins. The show itself generated its own spin-off, entitled "The Royal Today", which used the same settings but in the present day.
Overview.
The setting of "The Royal" was first introduced as part of the story for the 14th episode of the 12th series of "Heartbeat" entitled "Out of the Blue", in which the hospital was used to treat "Heartbeat" character Vernon Scripps and several people of Aidensfield. The benefit of this and its connection to the show, helped it to gain its own series, though it initially began as a spin-off with several characters from "Heartbeat" appearing in episodes as part of its main plots or side story; the most prominent of these appearances were Claude Greengrass (Bill Maynard), PC Alfred "Alf" Ventress (William Simons), and PC Philip "Phil" Bellamy (Mark Jordon). By the end of the third series, the show's ties to "Heartbeat" were discontinued, with the show's production team working to make it into its own entity by the fourth series. Unlike its former parent show, "The Royal" uses the song "Somebody Help Me" by The Spencer Davis Group as it main theme tune, with an instrumental version playing over the ending credits.
The majority of the plots in each episode centred around medical emergencies or a serious medical case, and often featured moral dilemmas created or exposed by these matters. Additional story-lines also included staff members dealing with personal problems or issues, and an occasional side-story in a similar vein to "Heartbeat". While the show tended to avoid political topics on the whole (the Vietnam War was briefly featured in one episode), its main themes focused and centred upon the conflict between progressive and conservative social ideals, as well as the ethical challenges and social changes faced by the hospital's staff, a reflection of its setting and what was faced by the world in the 1960s. Although the setting used includes references to 1960s events, such as the coming of colour television, like "Heartbeat" the show featured a number of anachronisms, such as the use of "a glass ceiling", an expression not coined until some years later.
Set roughly twenty years after the creation of the National Health Service, a theme running through the series is the previously independent hospital's attempts at preserving its methods and standards within a National Health Service portrayed as bureaucratic and concerned more with efficiencies than patient care.
Filming.
Filming of the interior scenes of "St. Aiden's" utilised both The Leeds Studios and St Luke's Hospital, Bradford, the latter of which was chosen because it had not been updated in many years, and retained the appearance of what a hospital would appear like in the 1960s. The exterior scenes of the fictional hospital used the Red Court building on Holbeck Road, within Scarborough's South Cliff, and included the nearby park area and Holbeck Clock Tower; scenes were shot during the summer months. The remaining scenes outside the hospital covered the area of the North Riding of Yorkshire, including Whitby and Scarborough.
Ratings.
Below is the list of ratings of The Royal, giving an overall result for each series.
"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.
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". 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.