What started as an inconspicuous boy-meets-girl tale swiftly became a cult classic in the U.K. On Wednesday night, Gavin & Stacey aired its final episode on the BBC.
James Corden and co-creator Ruth Jones began this journey years ago, long before Corden had made any impact in the U.S. with appearances in Ocean’s Eight (2018), Cats (2019) and, of course, on The Late Late Show.
The Wales and Essex-set sitcom became a career springboard for the pair, solidifying their status as comedy greats in a competitive industry as Gavin & Stacey went on to enjoy a healthy 17-year lifespan.
In every U.K. household, Gavin & Stacey is a staple of British television. It began with a man from Billericay in Essex, Gavin Shipman (Mathew Horne), and a young woman, Stacey West (Joanna Page), from Barry in Wales. They fall in love talking over the phone while working for the same company at miles-apart branches and when they first meet in episode one, they hit it off.
As the show follows their blossoming relationship (and eventual marriage), what really conjures the magic is their wider families whose lives all become intertwined as Gavin and Stacey try to make their Billericay-to-Barry relationship work.
Corden plays Smithy, Gavin’s charismatic and food-lover of a best friend, while his Barry counterpart is Jones, playing Nessa: an enigmatic, unyielding black-bobbed woman with a deadpan tone and a thick Welsh accent to boot. (The two characters, despite the show’s name, become the will-they-won’t-they couple of the entire series). Gavin’s parents, the snobbish Pamela (Alison Steadman) and sweet father Mick (Larry Lamb) attempt to welcome Stacey’s soft-spoken mother, Gwen (Melanie Walters) and excitable uncle, Bryn (Rob Brydon) across the border and into their home.
The cast of ‘Gavin & Stacey’ in the 2024 finale episode.
BBC/Toffee International Ltd/Tom Jackson
The cast chemistry is electric; it’s nailed-on, eccentric performances all round that have carved Gavin & Stacey into the British TV Hall of Fame. Corden and Jones are pros at spotlighting all the quirks of Welsh and English culture that resonate with their audience.
But it all culminated on Christmas Day when after three seasons (2007-2010) and two Christmas specials (2019, 2024) the Shipman-Wests said goodnight on BBC One. Audiences were finally able to see the fallout and resolution after Nessa got down on one knee for Smithy to propose five years ago.
The cast, including Corden and Jones, were emotional as they discussed the finale at a press launch ahead of the episode’s release.
“The more I’ve thought about it, I wonder if actually a lesson in patience,” Corden said about the show’s enduring popularity. “Particularly in television or the way that we consume stuff, we talk about content, we talk about consumers, and we talk about speed. And we’ve decided that speed is the single most important thing in everything that you can do.”
He continued: “I ordered it then, and it arrived then, and I watched it then. You get young people now watching things at twice the speed that it was ever meant to be formatted at. Here’s a show that ended 15 years ago, waited 10 years to tell another hour of the story, and waited five more years to end it completely. Maybe the lesson for all of us, for the people that write and talk about television, is actually time and patience and care might be the right answer for things to have longevity.”
Jones thanked Corden for their partnership, tearing up as she told him she loved him. “I think what has remained throughout all of the episodes is this sense of love: love between friends, love between family members, conventional boy-meets-girl stories and unconventional relationships [too],” she said, while Corden held her hand.
She added: “That’s remained the same and the lack of cynicism has remained the same. Basically, all the characters in the show really do love each other. Call it boring, but they do.”
Gavin & Stacey aired on BBC One at 9 p.m. London time on Dec. 25 and is also available to watch on BBC iPlayer.