Only TV scriptwriters would come up with the idea of marrying a pair of actors who have just got married in real life. Robert Daws and Amy Robbins, who play doctors in The Royal on ITV1, were happy to oblige. Steve Pratt reports.

STARS of ITV1's The Royal, Robert Daws and Amy Robbins, have got married twice within a matter of months - and on both occasions they wed each other. Once was for real as the couple, who met and fell in love of the set of the hospital series two years, tied the knot. Then a few months later they walked down the aisle as The Royal's Dr Gordon Ormerod and his bride Dr Jill Weatherill, with Amy's parents in the congregation. They're regular extras in TV shows and jumped at the chance to see their daughter get wed again for the cameras.

"It was like a replica of the actual day but with a lot more make-up and a lot less booze. Even my mum kept fussing over my veil," recalls Robbins.

Their Royal wedding is more chaotic than their real one as an explosion at a nearby old people's home disrupts the ceremony as the doctors and nurses in the congregation rush to help. Dr Jill, still wearing her white wedding dress, and her husband-to-be are among those helping the injured old folk.

The on-screen wedding also differed in being a church wedding. Daws and Robbins were married in a civil ceremony.

She was thrilled to find that Gwyneth Powell, best known as Mrs McCluskey in Grange Hill, was playing her mother. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her at the read-through," she says.

The couple also managed to get their 18-month-old daughter Betsy in front of the cameras later in the fourth series to make it a Royal family affair. She'd already been on set in a way as Robbins was heavily pregnant while filming the previous series.

"The little girl who was due to play a baby just so happened to get a cold and couldn't do it. Betsy was on the set and I couldn't wait to get her up there fast enough. I had her straight into costume, which we had to force her into because it was tiny. Betsy had the time of her life. I was busy beaming and crying in the wings, glowing with excitement," she says.

And her proud dad adds: "She seemed to be totally unfazed by being on the set."

"She was frighteningly good," says Robbins. "The last series was filmed until two weeks before I had her. I'm convinced she got used to the sounds of the set."

She and Daws have a home in Leeds, where they live while making The Royal on location in Scarborough and in a working hospital in Bradford.

"I tend not to go very far with her. She's always around and about. Domestic life is geared around her. We've taken our home to where we work, which is nice."

She's said she won't encourage Betsy to become an actress although Robbins herself comes from a family of entertainers. She wasn't bitten by the bug straight away. "When I was in my teens and twenties, I tried to convince myself I didn't want to act," she says.

"I went down the academic route and did a degree in English. After leaving I thought if I can't fight it I'm going to do it properly and go to Rada and be a classical actress. If I'd done something you may class as normal, like become a doctor, I think my family would have fainted."

Her pregnancy meant that Dr Jill missed out on The Royal's stunt scenes last series because of her pregnancy. This time she was back in action, doing a spot of abseiling in order to reach an injured climber.

"I did the majority of it, apart from the very scary bit at the bottom of the cliff. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. I am very un-Outward Bound, you tend to be if you're from Liverpool," she says. Daws had his share of high-flying stunts too, being lowered from a Sea King helicopter during a rescue in rough seas. "It was one of those situations where we could only do it once. It was great," he says. "I quite like all that Outward Bound sort of stuff but I'm quite bad at it. We got the chance to work with the real coastguard and Royal Air Force rescue crew.

The weather, though, was against the film crew during the eight-month shoot. "We've only had bad weather," says Daws. "Every day was tough. For one sequence we were out on a boat for what seemed like weeks trying to get the thing done. But my grandfather was a naval captain, so I have fairly good sea legs."

He's looking thinner these days, having lost three stone from the time he was doing Roger Roger for the BBC a few years ago. "Amy is a great cook, so we eat very healthily and just before The Royal I was in a farce in the West End for seven months which nearly killed me ,but had a great effect on my waistline."

He'll spend the break between series of The Royal working on an episode of Midsomer Murders ("he dies horribly in a barrel of red wine") and filming a new police series called Truman, set in the North.

Robbins intends to take time off to be with Betsy. "I'm looking forward to not working during the break, just staying at home with my baby," she says.

* The Royal returns to ITV1 on Sunday at 8pm.

Published: 02/12/2004