🏥 FANS OF CALL THE MIDWIFE ARE DISCOVERING ANOTHER BRITISH PERIOD DRAMA—AND MANY SAY IT’S JUST AS ADDICTIVE

When Call the Midwife first hit our screens back in 2012, it changed the landscape of period dramas forever. Since then, the smash hit series has captivated audiences for 14 years and continues to do so till date.

While ardent Call the Midwife fans await the season 16 premiere — alongside the prequel and full-length feature film which have been announced — those searching for their next medical period drama to binge-watch needn’t look any further, because we’ve got the perfect recommendation.

A British medical period drama on ITV is being hailed as an ideal Call the Midwife replacement by fans who just can’t get enough of the under-the-radar series.

Having first premiered on television in 2003, The Royal is a little-known period drama, streaming free on ITVX, that has successfully managed to establish a loyal fan base in the years since its release.

Having initially began as a spin-off of another megahit ITV medical period drama, Heartbeat, by the start of its fourth season, the series’ crossover elements and castmembers from Heartbeat were removed and the show began to focus on its own storylines and character arcs. The series ran for eight seasons and featured 87 episodes.

Set in the 1960s and following the lives of staff and patients at the fictional St Aidan’s Royal Free Hospital, an NHS hospital serving the fictional rural seaside town of Elsinby and its surrounding areas, the series was a beloved hit till its cancellation in 2011 — much to fans’ despair.

The medical period drama stars Ian Carmichael, Wendy Craig, Julian Ovenden, Robert Daws, Zoie Kennedy, Amy Robbins, and Linda Armstrong alongside a much larger ensemble cast, and most of its outdoor scenes were shot in North Yorkshire, including the popular towns of Scarborough and Whitby. The fictional hospital’s interior scenes were filmed at St Luke’s Hospital in Bradford and at The Leeds Studios.

In fact, the hit series managed to gain so much popularity during its time on the airwaves, it led ITV to commission a daytime spin-off in 2007 called The Royal Today, wherein the premise remained the same, however the show was set in the present day and featured an entirely new cast and characters. The Royal Today ran for one season and was cancelled in 2008.

Praise for The Royal has been huge since its release, with one IMDB user review saying: “Recreation of medical past, this show is amazingly good. The songs from the 60’s are tastefully interwoven throughout. The acting is natural and gripping. I highly recommend this well done medical series.”

Another fan of the show wrote: “This show exemplifies the quality of British television. The writing, dialogue and character development is on point. The music, location scenes, casting and attention to period realism is also top notch. This show can make you laugh and cry all in the same hour. It’s a little bit medical drama, and a little bit soap opera but only in the best ways.”

While one viewer labelled it ‘outstanding’: “The action was outstanding each minute of each episode, the blood looked real, loved the coastal scenery, and the acting top notch. This has been by far the most exciting series I’ve enjoyed these past 6 months.”

A IMDB user review compared it to Call the Midwife: “Watched this on BritBox through Amazon and was hooked immediately. I was really into Call the Midwife, but haven’t watched the episodes that I recorded from earlier this year. This show was very quaint and had a real air of enjoying itself and people liked each other for the most part. They were a family.”

The Royal is available to stream for free on ITVX.