I had never watched this before when it was broadcast on television, but I had heard about how popular and critically acclaimed it was, so when I was able to I watched the whole lot in one go. Basically level-headed Gavin Shipman (The Catherine Tate Show's British Comedy Award nominated Mathew Horne) from Billericay, Essex, and bubbly Stacey West (Love Actually's British Comedy Award nominated Joanna Page) from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, have been talking romantically on the phone for six months, and they finally arrange a face to face meeting. Gavin lives with his parents, down-to-earth father Michael 'Mick' (EastEnders' Larry Lamb) and house-proud, over-protective and reputation caring Pamela Andrea 'Pam' (Clockwise's Alison Steadman), and spends time with his oldest and closest best friend, Neil 'Smithy' Smith (The History Boys' BAFTA and twice British Comedy Award winning (and nominated), and British Comedy Award nominated James Corden). Stacey meanwhile lives with her caring widowed mother Gwen West (Being Human's Melanie Walters), gets frequent visits from protective and jolly uncle Bryn (The Big Fat Quiz of the Year's BAFTA and British Comedy Award nominated Rob Brydon), and spends time with best friend Vanessa Shanessa 'Nessa' Jenkins (Fat Friends' British Comedy Award winning (and twice nominated) Ruth Jones). Throughout the series we see the key moments of the relationship, the first meeting, the first kiss, meeting each other's families, becoming engaged, getting married, finding a house, briefly splitting, looking for new jobs and trying to conceive. The series also consists on the full family coming together for the small and non dramatic events, e.g. playing a pub quiz, having a takeaway, having a night out, a day at the beach, and the same goes for the conversations, realistically simple and non significant, but there are also the meaningful occasions, such as weddings, christenings, birthday parties and Christmas. While Gavin and Stacey provide the emotional core of the show, there are also the smallest subplots, such as Smithy and Nessa have a contrasting relationship, filled with dislike and one-night stands, one of which creating a baby that forces them together, and when Nessa becomes engaged to Dave Coaches (Ali G Indahouse's Steffan Rhodri) there is a big conclusion to their relationship in the end. Other subplots in the story that create other interest and humour are Pam trying to convince everyone that she is vegetarian when of course she is not and is desperate to keep up the pretence and not eat meat, which is hard, Bryn has many encounters with Stacey's older brother Jason (Robert Wilfort) who is gay, and they often discuss something that happened on a fishing trip between them. Also starring Russell Tovey as Budgie and Pam Ferris as Cath. This programme is really funny when it wants to be, but it is also brilliant for being so simple with many lovable characters, not least Smithy with his fun-loving and cool persona, and Nessa with her catchphrases "What's occurring?", "How's it going', alright" and "Oh!", the relationship concept building up quickly by each episode is clever, and the scripting by Corden and Jones is fantastic, I would highly recommend everyone watch this highly entertaining British romantic comedy drama. Note not just the Christmas special, but also the fantastic number single made for Comic Relief by Bryn, Nessa and Sir Tom Jones, "Islands In The Stream", and other great Comic Relief appearances by Smithy. It won the British Comedy Awards for Best Television Comedy, Best New TV Comedy (Scripted) and Best TV Comedy, and it won the National Television Award for Most Popular Comedy Programme. Very good!
Review of Gavin & Stacey
