What's on Stage Awards

Public Property has been nominated for the Best New Comedy Award and Julian Ovenden has been nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for his part in Annie Get Your Gun.

You can cast your vote here.

Yorkshire Television Studios to be redeveloped

The main studios ITV at Kirkstall Road in Leeds are to be given a 5 million pound refit and will become home to Emmerdale. Is this good news for The Royal? Who knows, but at least it is good news for TV Production in Yorkshire.

Robert Daws in Public Property

Roberts Daws has been getting fantastic reviews as newsreader Geoffrey Hammond in the play Public Property:

The intimate Trafalgar studio 2 works well for this three hander and the cast act their socks off.

TUCKED away in London's theatreland is this gem of a play. Robert Daws is immaculate as the venerable Geoffrey…In this intimate theatre it's a rare treat to see such brilliant actors perform so well at such close quarters.

Robert Daws is outstanding as the flustered telly celeb,

Daws does an excellent job of showing the desperation behind the bluster, and his raw vulnerability when talking to or about his offstage lover provides the production's tenderest moments.

Sharp dialogue and characters who are at once very naughty, rather neurotic but somehow lovable have seen this show praised to the skies by critics


greatly helped by Robert Daws's remarkable performance as Hammond whose early conceit quickly evaporates as he proves to be a nice enough chap.

Damian O Hare in theatre

Damian O Hare (Dr Nick Burnett), can be seen in the John Steinbeck classic The Grapes of Wrath.


More information can be found here:



The play has recieved excellent reviews, such as:

From remotegoat.co.uk:
"There are a number of strong and outstanding performances starting off with young Tom Joad the now paroled killer who clearly has an explosive character. Damian O'Hare plays the role with a building tension that you know is going to blow right about now."

From the Birmingham post:
"But tellingly the first scene, the chance encounter on the road between Tom Joad, returning from jail, and Casey, the former preacher turned sceptic, has a focused intimacy (and a clarity of delivery from Damian O’Hare and Oliver Cotton that we don’t always experience in this theatre) which immediately gives a momentum to the narrative which is sustained throughout the first act"

And finally, the Stage:
"Tom, the convict on licence played by Damian O’Hare, is a man of many parts, who develops a philosophical attitude which is not always at one with his understandable anger."

The play, also starring Sorcha Cusack (Who played Sister Brigid's mother in the Ireland episodes), can be seen at:

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds 3rd-14th November
Hall for Cornwall, Truro, 17th-21st November.

Who's the fairest of them all?

“Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” - Michelle Hardwick, The Royal's receptionist, Lizzie Hopkirk stars in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at The Grand Opera House in York from 11th December 2009.

The magical fairy tale features all the great pantomime ingredients; a beautiful princess trying to escape the clutches of a wicked queen, Lynne McGranger (Irene from Home & Away) and a handsome prince Mark Griffin (Gladiators Trojan) who comes to her rescue. Plus of course bucket loads of songs, dances and lots of fun and laughter. Billed as "The perfect festive treat for the whole family"

Tickets are now onsale: The Grand Opera House York

Robert Daws in theatre

Robert Daws in Public Property
Actor Robert Daws, (Dr Ormerod in The Royal) is currently rehearsing a new play at Trafalgar Studio 2 in London. Performances run from 10th Nov to 5th Dec 2009 and tickets are now on sale. Robert plays Geoffrey Hammond, a popular TV newsreader, with Nigel Harman (Eastenders & Hotel Babylon) as his publicist Larry. For further information and tickets, please visit the website: http://www.publicpropertytheplay.com
Or you can follow Geoffrey Hammond on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GHammondat10

What is the Royal?

So what is The Royal?

The Royal is a Hospital drama set in 1960’s North Yorkshire, the name of the TV show echos the name of the cottage hospital, to give it it’s full title “St Aiden’s Royal Free” in the fictional town of Elsinby.
The show was first broadcast in January 2003, a spin off show from the ever popular police drama Heartbeat, we meet the first character from The Royal in Heartbeat series 12 episode 11 “Sins of the Fathers”, with the arrival of Dr James Alway (Francis Matthews), at the doctor’s surgery following the tragic death of Dr Tricia Summerby (Clare Calbraith), Aidensfield’s young GP.
We are first introduced to The Royal properly four weeks later in episode 14 of Heartbeat series 12 “Out of the Blue.” Vernon Scrips (Geoffrey Hughes) has become involved in a money making scam involving a tanker, which he is driving back from Hull early one morning, when a speeding car causes him to swerve on a narrow moors road and the tanker overturns. By the time PC Mike Bradley (Jason Durr) arrives on the scene, the unknown contents are spilling onto the road. An unconscious Vernon is taken by ambulance to The Royal and within hours the population of Aidensfield are suffering symptoms from contamination of the water supply by the contents of the tanker. Unable to cope with the never ending stream of patients, Dr Alway sends some of them for treatment at The Royal. And so we are introduced to Dr Jill Weatherill (Amy Robbins), Dr Gordon Ormerod (Robert Daws), Sister Bridget (Linda Armstrong) and Matron (Wendy Craig).
The appeal of Heartbeat has always been the subtle balance of serious police and medical based stories with the gentle humour of the other characters. The Royal adopts the same approach, introducing receptionist Lizzie Kennoway (Michelle Hardwick) through a comical misunderstanding with Heartbeat’s undertaker Bernie Scripps (Peter Benson) brother of the unfortunate and now unconscious Vernon. The comedy is carried through as Vernon regains consciousness and quickly enlists the help of porters Ken Hopkirk (Mickey Starke) and Alun Morris (Andy Wear).
"Out of the Blue" combines the two shows beautifully, the premise of Heartbeat has always been the mixture of police and medical stories and to a certain extent The Royal carries on this tradition, though with more emphasis on the medical aspects. Through out the first two series characters from Heartbeat occasionally appear in The Royal, a genius move by the producers, as the sister show was to share the same slot on a Sunday evening, and the continuity of familiar characters encouraged audience transference. The storylines of Dr Always continue seamlessly across the two shows and The Royal’s new recruit Dr David Cheriton (Julian Ovenden) is introduced at the beginning of the first episode of The Royal, “First Impressions” outside Heartbeat’s pub the Aidensfield Arms, as he gets directions from Gina Ward (Tricia Penrose).

ITV bosses were so confident that The Royal was going to be a sure fire hit that the second series was commissioned and filmed before the first series had even aired. Viewing figures soon bore out their confidence.Six years later, despite The Royal still being consistently ranked in the top ten terrestrial dramas the picture is far different and fans across the world are uniting to save the show. If you haven’t already done so please support the campaign by signing the petition to Save The Royal. http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/itv-the-royal.html

Yorkshire coastradio

Yorkshire coast radio, which covers Scarborough, has highlighted the fact that, due to no filming of The Royal, tourism has decreased, and not attracting enough business. This is due to th e fact there is a lack of TV filming, and The Royal having been 'rested'.

Thanks to Katie for the information.

In the cold winter months at the beginning of this year, fans of 60’s Hospital drama The Royal were looking forward to the next batch of episodes being screened, a chance to relax with the family and follow the heroic actions of Dr Ormerod, Dr Weatherill, Mr Rose and their medical team and the gentle humour of porters Alun Morris and Jack Bell and receptionist Lizzie Hopkirk. Towards the end of January their cosy evenings were shattered by newspaper reports that a crash strapped ITV had axed both The Royal and it’s elder sister Heartbeat.

The uproar from fans across the world was so intense that ITV was forced to issue a statement later that afternoon: “Heartbeat and the Royal are an important part of the ITV schedule, and are both still in production.” The statement continued saying that production would be rested whilst the backlog of episodes was shown.
Despite this reassurance an unease spread amongst the fans and by the end of the week petitions had been organised and a letter writing campaign begun, lobbying support from newspapers and MP’s. Fear of the impact on the economy in Yorkshire where both series are filmed, prompted the Regional Agency “Welcome to Yorkshire” to sponsor the shows.
Fears that the two Yorkshire based family drama’s Heartbeat and The Royal were being quietly consigned to history seemed to be confirmed when filming of the final episode of Heartbeat was completed and the Farsley Mill studio was stripped of the familiar sets.
Heartbeat and The Royal are not the only popular dramas to suffer, long running police drama The Bill was transformed and reduced to one hour a week, moving to 9pm, unsuprisingly viewing figures plummeted. Another long running crime solving series Wire in the Blood, also filmed in the north was axed, adding to the devastating job losses already seen in Yorkshire. Scottish police drama Taggart faces an uncertain future after 25 years on our screens and Saturday evening family adventure drama Primeval was another popular show deemed too expensive to continue.
Executives quoted falling advertising revenue and viewer figures which have droped from 11million in the early years of Heartbeat to around 7 million with the introduction of multichannel viewing. The schedules were filled with cheaper “Reality TV” and the viewers voiced their complaints online and through the TV Magazines but to no avail.
Petitions to save the shows were launched and the number of signatures currently stand in the thousands. Paper petitions being available in Goathland, Whitby and Scarborough, places which attract a steady stream of visitors and benefit enormously from the influx. Over 15,000 signatures were collected from visitors in the first three months of the campaign. Fans from across the world have also signed petitions online.
long term viewers vowed to make their point by avoiding pressing the button marked 3 on their remote controls and the backlash was obvious in the viewing figures with shows brought in to replace those axed suffering in the ratings tables.
The recently proposed changes to advertising rules on British Television have brought a glimer of hope that all the efforts may not be in vain. This hope was given a further boost in the last few days with the surprise anouncement that the family drama Primeval, whose demise was anounced along with many other ITV favourates earlier this year. The producers having sucessfully negotiated an inovative deal to fund the continuation of the show.http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/commi....5006271.article
If you are a fan or even an occassional viewer of these quality British family dramas, please take a moment to add your name to those who have already signed and support the campaign to bring the well loved characters back to our screens.http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/itv-the-royal.html

By kate

Relevant links.

These links are of sites involved with the campaign:

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/itv-the-royal.html

http://theroyalrocks.proboards.com/index.cgi

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=93150913171&ref=ts

http://sky.prohosting.com/kateshb/ Includes flyers/more info.

The Campaign Summary.

Bit of background:

The Save the Royal campaign was devised by members of The Royal Fans Forum, after news that The Royal is to be rested/axed.

We feel that The Royal has been unfairly treated by ITV, and we would like the show to be recommisioned/repeated/put onto DVD.

So far we have an online petition, which has been signed by fans from all over the world. Now, there are currently 849 signatures, from places such as Denmark, where the show has a large following, america, canada, sweden and Norway.

The petition has already recieved media coverage, both on radio and local newspapers. Petitions have been placed in locations relevant to the show.

Now, after news Primeval has come back after originally being axed, everything is currently being done to bring back The Royal.