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'Gavin & Stacey' In The Press...It's Gavin & Stacey... and Tom Gavin & Stacey show bosses are busy creating a new character in the series for Tom Jones. From The Sun, 4th July 2009 Ruth Jones: Gavin & Stacey interview The shy star of 'Gavin and Stacey' talks about her latest role, writing with James Corden and the pleasures of 'nice-com'. Written by James Rampton. From The Independent, 3rd July 2009 Gavin and Stacey 'say goodbye' Gavin and Stacey writer and star James Corden says he's "very sad" as the cast prepare for the third and final series of the hit TV show. Rehearsals commence on 8 June, with filming starting on 15 June. Written by Greg Cochrane. From BBC, 3rd June 2009 Pam Ferris to star in Gavin & Stacey Comedy legend Pam Ferris will soon be larkin' around in Gavin & Stacey - as Smithy's mum Kath. From The Sun, 1st June 2009 The new series of Gavin & Stacey has been cut from seven to six episodes. James Corden and Ruth Jones - who write the comedy hit and star as Smithy and Nessa - are too busy to make the full run. Written by Jen Blackburn. From The Sun, 2nd April 2009 I partied too hard: James Corden Since hitting the headlines as the star and writer of hit comedy Gavin & Stacey, James Corden has become an unlikely pin-up. Written by Emma Cox. From The Sun, 19th January 2009 Gavin and Stacey star 'pressure' Ruth Jones, the co-writer of the acclaimed comedy Gavin and Stacey, says the "pressure is on" as she starts work on the third series. From BBC News, 16th January 2009 Actress Joanna Page says she'd be happy to do Gavin & Stacey for another 20 years. From The Sun, 5th January 2009 Gavin and Stacey live in my house When the cast of hit comedy Gavin & Stacey pack up after filming in the show's two houses, the real owners can move back in. From The Mirror, 3rd January 2009 Perhaps the best sitcom of the year was Gavin and Stacey. As Henry Normal pointed out - there are loads of scenes when everyone's laughing but nobody's the butt of the joke - a refreshing approach. The sequence where the entire family got fantastically over-excited over Gavin's dad's (three-second) appearance on the news was probably the best portrayal of family life on TV since the early days of The Royle Family. We'll put aside memories of that horribly disappointing Christmas special, though, and hope for the best when the recently announced third series rolls around. James Corden: Worth his weight in gold If 2008 was the year comedy actor and writer James Corden's career took off, 2009 will see it go stratospheric. From The Telegraph, 1st January 2009 Shipman's victim's son attacks Gavin and Stacey The BBC comedy series Gavin and Stacey has delighted millions of fans whilst also gaining a clutch of awards. But until the Christmas special, few among the audience had realised that the main characters are named after serial killers. Written by Julie Moult. From The Daily Mail, 1st January 2009 "It's Chriiiisssstmaaasss!" hollers Smithy down the phone to Gavin, and indeed it is. Unlike some Christmas specials whose only relevance to this time of year is the transmission date, our December date with the Shipmans and the Wests was the televisual equivalent of a full turkey dinner, turning up sloshed at midnight mass and answering the door to three sullen youths who give you a load of abuse when asked to expand their carolling repertoire beyond the chorus of 'We wish you a Merry Christmas.' Plus, it had a decent plot and some killer lines. Marvellous. The problem with Gavin and Stacey - other than James Corden's penchant for making a prat of himself at awards ceremonies - is not that it's terrible. It isn't. It's overrated but it can actually be rather sweet, albeit with self-consciously saucy bits (An old lady talking about drugs! How risque!) and an irksome jarring inauthenticity. Still, like the mint Baileys that so beguiles Bryn (Rob Brydon), Corden and Ruth Jones's comedy is something of an acquired taste and one acquired by rather a lot of people. This hour-long special is destined to become a classic - as James Corden and Mathew Horne confirm they'll be making another series. One of the most endearing and understated series of recent years, this sure-fire comedy about Essex boy Gavin and his Welsh sweetheart, Stacey, combines mordant humour and cringe-making moments of mundanity with seemingly effortless success. Gavin and Stacey ready to return Gavin and Stacey co-writers James Corden and Ruth Jones have announced there will be a third series of the hit comedy show. They made the announcement live on stage in Barry Island, where Jones was hosting an open-air edition of her BBC Radio Wales show. From BBC, 21st December 2008 James Corden on the Christmas special After a year in which he won a Bafta for playing the lovably flawed Smithy in Gavin & Stacey, then a British Comedy Award for co-writing the thing, and was extolled as the new face of British comedy, James Corden is entitled to put up his feet on Christmas Day. Written by Ed Potton. From The Times, 20th December 2008 Gavin & Stacey's Family Reunion Ruth Jones and James Corden, creators of 2008's surprise Bafta-winner, tell The Telegraph why good-natured comedy is back. Written by Michael Deacon. From The Telegraph, 19th December 2008 Named 3rd best show of 2008: The sitcom about two ordinary households has made its creators household names. Last year, James Corden and Ruth Jones wrote and starred in a little-watched BBC3 series documenting the ups and downs of a young couple and their families. This year, it won them two Baftas. And rightly so, for its wit, perceptiveness and warmth. The second series, shown in spring, was just as funny but even more moving. Ahead of the much-anticipated Christmas special, the big success story of BBC3's comedy output is promoted to the heady heights of BBC1 for a welcome repeat of the just-as-good-as-the-first second series. The more people that see this show the better, as it's absolutely stonking, with Ruth Jones and James Corden's scripts hitting the right note between sweet and subversive. If there's one criticism, Gavin and Stacey themselves take a back seat for much of the series, but blame the writers for creating such a lovable and well-drawn group of characters. Brilliant. Everything you need to know about... Gavin & Stacey A beginners guide to the series from The Independent. From The Independent, 21st November 2008 There's still no official word on whether Ruth Jones and James Corden will be able to find time in their fantastically busy schedules to write series three. The series about how a nice boy from Essex and a sweet girl from Barry in south Wales fell in love and married has been an astounding success and won a stash of prestigious awards for writers James Corden and Ruth Jones, who also star in the show as Smithy and Nessa. The Daily Express, 21st November 2008 BBC3's smash-hit comedy is finally promoted to BBC1. Ahead of this year's Christmas special, here's a re-run of series two, first shown in March. Having scored a massive success with their first series, writers/stars Ruth Jones and James Corden were under immense pressure to create an even better follow-up. This they did with almost annoying ease: witness this opening episode in which, for ten minutes, almost nothing happens. This is fine because the characters are so warm and so funny, it's a joy to spend time with them. And later, as the family reconvene in an Italian restaurant, there's some beautifully orchestrated hysterical farce as the secret of Nessa's pregnancy slowly leaks. Jack Seale, The Radio Times, 21st November 2008 Series two of the Bafta award-winning comedy gets a repeat (it was first shown on BBC Three) to take us up to the Christmas Special, which is sure to be a highlight of the festive season. The writers James Corden and Ruth Jones - who also play Gavin and Stacey's best friends Smithy and Nessa - have created such a tight but wide-ranging cast of characters, each loveable in their own way, that it's always a pleasure to meet them again. Nessa, in particular, is brilliant - hard as nails and with a thousand past lives, including driving for The Who and founding the girlband All Saints. One thing she hasn't done, though, is have a baby, and her pregnancy is revealed to a shocked Smithy tonight. No longer just the big gobby sidekick, Ruth Jones is a sharp comic talent who is popping up all over our screens. Written by Jasper Rees. From The Times, 16th November 2008 It's been a heady year for James Corden - a hit sitcom, a rising celeb profile and a rackety night life. Easy to become a bit of a prat, he tells The Guardian - which is why he means to concentrate on the good stuff. Written by Simon Hattenstone. From The Guardian, 8th November 2008 Brit-Com Gavin and Stacey Arrives on Our Shores An American article talking about the show arriving in America, complete with a glossary of terms that American viewers might not get (e.g. "it's well nice" = it's very nice) From BuzzSugar, 26th August 2008 An American paper reviews Gavin & Stacey as it makes its debut on BBC America. Written by Mary McNamara. From Los Angeles Times, 26th August 2008 A profile of Gavin and Stacey writer and star James Corden Written by Robert Hanks. From The Independent, 26th April 2008 James Corden seems to think he's a comedy genius The Guardian's Gareth McLean continues his war of words with the show by claiming James Corden has an over-inflated ego and is an ungracious winner. Written by Gareth McLean. From The Guardian, 24th April 2008 The actor who plays Gavin in the show talks to The Mirror. Apparently in real life he would fancy Nessa more than Stacey. Written by Beth Neil. From The Mirror, 23rd April 2008 I don't mind new writers and actors being given breaks, but couldn't they be honest about it? Gavin & Stacey is described as a comedy drama. Which is similar to describing George W Bush as warmongering christian (which he is, but that's not the point). Posing as a comedy drama while hidden away on BBC Three gives the series an excuse to neither be funny nor dramatic while building an unwarranted 'cult' following. The past few years have been like a sitcom desert in British TV land. I seriously can't remember one sitcom I've actively made an effort to watch from start to finish. To my surprise, Gavin and Stacey has filled that void. We're more than halfway through the latest series of Gavin and Stacey and so far, hardly anything has actually, you know, happened. But that's all to the good, because I reckon this is the funniest, most warm-hearted sitcom on telly for ages. Okay, it's lighter on storylines but now this sitcom delivers glorious set-pieces to compensate. Yet it never tips over into cheesiness - thanks mainly to a lake of smut bubbling below the surface. Radio Times, 30th March 2008 The idea of two people meeting, falling in love and getting married isn't a theme we don't know inside out but this works thanks to wonderful writing and a cast of highly talented people who seem to fit perfectly in their roles. Rob Brydon's Bryn is wonderful and his love of James Blunt ("the one about the wise man by the sea") really made me laugh. A confession, for I have clearly sinned - if only critically: I've never reviewed Gavin and Stacey for the simple reason that I am not as in love with it as everybody else seems to be but don't hate it enough to rustle up any vitriol either. The first series of Gavin and Stacey was a fairly low-key affair: a BBC3 sitcom about an Essex boy and a Welsh girl falling rather sweetly in love, with the comedy left mostly to their families and respective best friends, Smithy and Nessa (James Corden and Ruth Jones, the show's writers). Before long, though, that same low-key series started to win one entirely justified award after another. Gavin and Stacey, back for its second series on BBC Three, continues to pose the question: who are the real stars of this thing? The pair were back from their honeymoon in Greece. It was "nice". But who wanted to hear about that when Stacey's friend Nessa still hadn't told Gavin's friend Smithy that she had his bun in her capacious oven? Mathew Horne and Joanna Page play the nominal leads with such Christ-like modesty that one feels vaguely aggrieved on their behalf that the best lines are written for Smithy and Nessa by the very actors who play them. From The Custard TV, 16th March 2008 A collection of Gavin and Stacey features from The Radio Times. From The Radio Times, |
