Gavin & Stacey

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.

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.

Being Welsh this is a typically stereotypical view of the way we live out life in Wales. But we don't mind being the but of a joke every now and then. Particularly when the joke is as good as this.

I have often met like people like Nessa and Gwen (Nessa's character being taken to the extreme however) but where in the world did Bryn come from? There are characteristics of Bryn that I have seen in many elderly Welshmen I have met in the valleys and even in my own Grandfather who grew up on the edge on the Rhondda valleys, but Bryn as a whole is unfathomable to me. Such a brilliantly unique character of heart warming naivety and innocence (and horrendous cringe worthiness) that no explanation can accurately describe him.

I have to say that this series completely took me by surprise. I expected it to be completely over the top and totally removed from real life...... and it is. Having said that it works to such a degree that I urge you to try it out for yourselves.

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.

An absolutely superb comedy, top class acting and the writing is incredible. This truly is one of the greatest comedy series I have seen in years.

Following the relationship between Gavin (Matthew Horne: Teachers and Catherine Tate) and Stacey (Joanna Page) from their initial phone flirtation, to their wedding day and beyond into married life this programme is skillfully written by James Corden and Ruth Jones who also star as Gavin and Stacey's best friends Smithy and Nessa (who completely steal the show in my opinion.) Those who've given this show a poor rating obviously have no sense of humour and can't appreciate decent comedy!