Gavin & Stacey

This was an outstanding series - won a few awards as well. This is Welsh humour and needs to be listened to so that you understand the joke. Many might need slapstick for humour but this picks up on the way many Welsh families are intertwined and how the matriarchal and patriarchal figures are often figures of humour. Ruth Jones demonstrates real skill in playing such a part and the cast is full of home grown talent.

They must be watched in order - each episode runs naturally on but will spoil the previous episode if watched out-of-synch.

Roll on series 2

Gavin & Stacey is one of those classic British sitcoms that just makes you feel good about the place. It's warm, cosy and gentle in it's delivery. I don't consider it in the elite category as the writing simply isn't as strong as the likes of Fawlty Towers, Peep Show and The Office, but it is nonetheless a wholly enjoyable series that can be watched and re-watched indefinitely.

I must say I can't quite understand the previous reviewer, as I think they are on a different planet to anyone else and I felt compelled to put the record straight.

Gavin & Stacey is one of the best comedies I have seen in recent years. It features a wonderful cast and a brilliantly written script form Ruth Jones and James Cordon. The programme is set around Gavin (an Essex boy) and Stacey (a receptionist from Barry Island) who begin their relationship over the phone when they are at work.

Feedback from the series has been so good that a second series has already been commissioned.

In the 1980s, the most famous hit of writer John Sullivan was 'Only Fools and Horses', but what actually won bigger ratings was a gentler comedy drama he wrote about two people falling in love, 'Just Good Friends'. And in some ways, 'Gavin and Stacey', a low key hit, is the 'Just Good Friends' of our time. At initial acquaintance, it's not riotously funny, and it's certainly not savage (unlike 'Pulling', another BBC3 hit); but the more you watch it, the more you find yourself smiling throughout, simply because the world it depicts is unquestionably the real world: this, in a way that few other television programs are, is a story of contemporary life. The central role of Gavin is quite passive and non-comic: the other characters are one-part sitcom staple, one part modern cliché, but still original - the mix works, supporting by acting and direction which overplays nothing and stays true to the rhythms of the everyday. As such, it's a record for the historians of the future to judge our age by; but very much also a comedy for us to laugh at now.

I bought the complete series of Gavin & Stacey in a box-set and could not stop watching it even though I wanted to delay watching the third and final season as it would mean that my viewing pleasure would be shortened.

Gavin & Stacey is a story centred on 2 individuals, their family and friends. It has a very simple storyline showing how the characters relate to one another in their ordinary day to day lives.

The romance between Gavin & Stacey aside, what I loved about the series is the friendship between Gavin & Smithy and Stacey and Vanessa. It is easy to identify with how the separate pairs of besties relate to each other and remain besties throughout the series despite their changing circumstances, like Gavin & Stacey getting married and each having to leave their hometowns and their besties at different points in the series.

I particularly liked how Vanesssa (played by Ruth Jones) is so tough and yet vulnerable. Vanessa also makes makes some very terse remarks in her Welsh tongue which cracked me up. I love the soundtrack, and how the characters relate through music (music by New Order, for one).

All the actors hold their own and both scriptwriters Ruth Jones and James Corden deserve the all accolades they have received for this series.