THE ROYAL
Interview with Robert Daws
Published: Tuesday, 21 August 2007, 5:28PM
Robert Daws is a veteran of The Royal and he is married to co-star Amy Robbins on and off screen. They have two daughters aged four and 18. He plays Dr Gordon Ormerod and she is Dr Jill Weatherill.
The new series is the busiest yet for the two on-screen characters and ends with a huge cliffhanger.
Tell us about the cliffhanger
We can't spoil the surprise but all I can say is that it is completely unexpected. The first thing Ormerod and Weatherill know about it is when Dr Banner accidentally opens some results.
There has been a harder edge to this series so far. Have you noticed that?
It’s true, the producers have tried to crank up issues over the last two series. The possibilities for stories are so big, especially at that time when the NHS was changing so much.
Could The Royal exist now?
I don’t think it could, it’s small and local. In reality it wouldn’t have survived beyond the end of the 1970s. Mind you there is now a policy where the health service wants to recreate that again at a local level in doctors’ surgeries. Maybe it has come full circle
Dr Ormerod resents change, doesn’t he?
The beauty of hospitals like The Royal in the 1960s was that they were local and a hospital was personal to people in a way that it isn’t now. At the time it was a deeply felt emotional issue for many doctors and they still feel the changes were done in the wrong way. Doctors from that period have not recovered from that sense of anger when the NHS changed.
The medical scenes seem to be getting gorier
It has to be very realistic but you’re right, the blood quota has gone up a bit. Compared with the first series it has. The prosthetics department that works for us also does big movies and has a great range of work. They are very talented and I think people want to see these things.
Some are quite full on, though
Yes, the days of seeing someone operated on from the neck up are over, it’s not Emergency Ward 10.* We used one machine in one episode that simulated a perforated bowel.
Maybe we shouldn’t go there.
We only noticed it when we watched the tape.
Were there some funny moments during filming?
Yes. Amy was delivering a baby girl that was actually a realistic plastic model. She was doing it very carefully and then all of a sudden its legs fell off. It was pretty upsetting all round.
What is it like to live and work with your wife?
I'm sure Amy would say she absolutely hates it but from a family point of view it's absolutely wonderful. The possibility of two actors working and living together like this is almost nil. So we count our blessings.
*Emergency Ward 10 was a hit ITV drama that ran from 1957-67.