James Corden on why Brits are mourning the end of ‘Gavin & Stacey’

What started as an eye-opening boy-meets-girl tale quickly became a cult classic in Britain on Wednesday night, Gavin and 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 US with appearances in Ocean’s Eight (2018), Cats (2019) and of course beyond The Late Late Show.

The Wales and Essex sitcom became a career springboard for the pair, cementing their status as comedy giants in a competitive industry such as Gavin and Stacey went on to enjoy a healthy 17-year lifespan.

In every British household, Gavin and 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 on the phone while working for the same company in branches miles apart, and when they first meet in the first episode, they hit it off.

While the series follows their blossoming relationship (and eventual marriage), what really conjures up 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 foodie of a best friend, while his Barry counterpart is Jones, who plays 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, remain a will-they-won’t-they couple throughout the series). Gavin’s parents, snobbish Pamela (Alison Steadman) and sweet dad Mick (Larry Lamb) try to welcome Stacey’s soft-spoken mother, Gwen (Melanie Walters) and excitable uncle, Bryn (Rob Brydon) across the border and into their home.

Casting chemistry is electrical; it’s sloppy, eccentric performances all around that have cut Gavin and Stacey into the British TV Hall of Fame. Corden and Jones are pros at highlighting 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), Shipman-Wests said goodnight to BBC One. Audiences were finally able to see the fallout and disintegration after Nessa got down on one knee to propose to Smithy 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 it’s actually a lesson in patience,” Corden said of the show’s enduring popularity. “Especially in television or the way we consume things, we’re talking about content, we’re talking about consumers, and we’re talking about speed. And we’ve decided that speed is the most important thing in anything you can do.”

He continued: “I ordered it then and it came then and I saw it then. You get young people now watching things at twice the speed it was ever meant to be formatted. Here’s a show , which ended 15 years ago, waited 10 years to tell another hour of the story, and waited five more years to finish it completely.Maybe the lesson for all of us, for the people who write and talk about television, is actually time and patience and care can be the right answer for things to have a long life.”

Jones thanked Corden for their partnership and cried as she told him she loved him. “I think what has remained through all the episodes is this sense of love: love between friends, love between family members, conventional boy-meets-girl stories and unconventional relationships (as well),” she said, while Corden held her hand.

She added: “It’s stayed the same, and the lack of cynicism has stayed the same. Basically, all the characters in the show really love each other. Call it boring, but they do.”

Gavin and Stacey was broadcast on BBC One at 9pm London time on 25 December and can also be seen on BBC iPlayer.