A Love Letter to Gavin and Stacey

When Gavin and Stacey returned after ten years with the 2019 Christmas Special, the show also had the chance to return to the public conscience. The truth is it had never left. The 12.3 million viewers that tuned into the special on BBC One on Christmas Day show just how popular and culturally significant the show has become. That works out at nearly 20% of the population watching the same show at the same time. It is the show that launched the career of James Corden, one of the few British entertainers to truly have cracked America, spawned a ton of catchphrases and idioms and massively helped Barry Island’s tourism. It is also my favourite programme. I have probably seen each individual episode about twenty times each. I could accurately repeat whole scenes line by line. It has become like a comfort blanket and a friend. Whenever Gavin arrives at his parents, Pam and Micks, it feels like I too am home.

So, what makes it so iconic? I think the first thing to mention is a quality that I have probably just invented but that is best described as ‘rewatchability.’ It is not a synonym for good or brilliant, as there are numerous television shows that I have enjoyed hugely when watching them but have no intention of returning to. It doesn’t even necessarily connote quality in terms of something that is critically well-received or that is truly original. ‘Rewatchability’ instead refers to an inherent warmth or charm and it tends to be a quality that is found in shows whose goal is to make the viewer happy. The best and most obvious example is Friends, whilst other American sitcoms like The US Office and New Girl also manage to produce this, mainly because with 24 episodes in a season, there is so much content to enjoy. One huge compliment to Gavin and Stacey is that it manages to be so ‘rewatchable’ despite there only being three seasons of six to seven episodes and a couple of Christmas specials. It will just always be able to to raise a smile or cause a chuckle, even when you know exactly what is coming next.

This ‘rewatchability’ is also due to another key attribute of the show, which is its realism. Other shows are more laugh-out-loud funny but none have been able to create characters that are as authentic or true. As iconic as comedy characters like Alan Partridge or David Brent are, you can’t really imagine yourself bumping into them in the supermarket, whereas running into Pam, Mick or Bryn seems somehow normal and believable. None of them are comedians, they are just normal people who happen to say funny things, which is what most normal people can do in my experience. All of this is borne from the earliest premise of the show, with James Corden saying in a number of interviews that he’d “never seen a Wedding on TV like one he’d actually been to.” That one-off show about a wedding eventually became a multi-episode series but that effort to create something true to life has led to an affinity between the characters and audience that is rarely found. I saw on Facebook the other day a thread a fan had posted, imagining how the Gavin and Stacey characters would all be coping with the lockdowns of the past year. That sort of says it all.

Finally, I want to mention the sheer brilliance of the writing behind it. James Corden and Ruth Jones are rightly celebrated for the quality of their scripts and you always know a piece of writing has entered the hall of fame when the process of creating it becomes famous as well and Corden and Jones’ epic marathon writing sessions have done just that. Jones on the laptop and Corden wandering around restlessly proved to be a wonderful recipe for success. It’s a combination of well-crafted scenes that masterfully increase in tension and humour, a number of genuinely hilarious one-liners (“There’s the salad”, “It’s usually used on cattle but she reckoned the effect would be exactly the same” and “Where to she now then” to name just three) and a sort of unique, intrinsic language that is both nonsensical and authentic. The iconic moments of the show: Smithy’s Indian order, the fishing trip motif and the ‘American Boy’ rap are all examples of script-writing at its very finest.

So, thank you Gavin and Stacey for providing so much entertainment. I don’t think I will ever stop re-watching you. If I could be so bold as to ask for one more little favour after all you’ve already done… a fourth series wouldn’t hurt.