Gavin & Stacey is a British sitcom written by James Corden and Ruth Jones about two families: one in Billericay, Essex; one in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan. Mathew Horne and Joanna Page play the eponymous characters Gavin and Stacey, while Corden and Jones star as Smithy and Nessa. Alison Steadman and Larry Lamb star as Gavin's parents (Pam and Mick), and Melanie Walters (Gwen) is Stacey's mother and Rob Brydon (Bryn) is Stacey's uncle.
Baby Cow Productions produced the sitcom for BBC Wales. Three series totalling twenty episodes were broadcast from 13 May 2007 to 1 January 2010 on BBC Three and later on BBC One. Broadcast on Christmas Day 2009 and New Year's Day 2010, episodes of the final series formed a significant part of the prime-time BBC seasonal programming.
Gavin & Stacey was directed by Christine Gernon who had previously directed other BBC sitcoms such as One Foot in the Grave. Acclaimed as both a hit and a breakthrough show for the BBC, it was the most nominated show in the 2007 British Comedy Awards. It won several awards, including the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs) Audience Award, and the British Comedy Awards Best TV Comedy Award, both in 2008. In 2019, Gavin & Stacey was named the 17th-greatest British sitcom in a poll by Radio Times.
Corden and Jones wrote a Christmas Day 2019 special for BBC One. With 18.49 million viewers, the broadcast in the United Kingdom was the most-viewed non-sporting event in a decade and the most-watched comedy in 17 years.
Synopsis
The story revolves around Gavin, from Billericay in Essex, and Stacey, from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, in South Wales. Gavin lives with his parents, Pam and Mick, and spends most of his time with his best friend, Smithy. Stacey lives with her widowed mother, Gwen, and is frequently visited by her uncle, Bryn, who lives across the road, and by her best friend Nessa. The show follows the key moments in their relationship: their first meeting, meeting each other's families, getting engaged, marrying, looking for a flat, briefly splitting up, looking for new jobs and trying for children.
The characters of Gavin and Stacey provide the emotional core of the story, focusing on the situations that arise when their relationship brings their two different families together. As a result, episodes often focus on the key events in life that bring wider families and close friends together such as weddings, christenings, birthday parties and Christmases. However, the show also presents the families interacting in deliberately non-dramatic situations, such as a visit to the beach and nights out. In these scenes, the subtle dialogue between the characters often contains underlying jokes or comedic value.
The series also follows the contrasting relationship between Smithy and Nessa. Despite their dislike for each other, they have several one-night stands, leading to Nessa becoming pregnant and having their baby. Whilst Gavin and Stacey are the clear main characters, towards the end of the show's run, the dramatic emphasis switches slightly from them, as they resolve their distance issues, to Smithy and Nessa, as Nessa becomes engaged to another man.
Other storylines in the three series include Pam's fake vegetarianism, Bryn and his nephew Jason's struggle to keep the events of their disastrous fishing trip a secret, and the ridiculously rocky marriage of Pam and Mick's friends Pete and Dawn.
Cast
The surnames of well-known English serial killers were used for some of the main characters – Harold Shipman, Fred West and Peter Sutcliffe. Ruth Jones commented in 2009: "I suppose we were hoping that people wouldn't realise and then when it does come to light, it's even more delicious..."