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

This was a delightful, short, minimal-commitment that took me two or three days to breeze through. It's nothing mind-blowing and it doesn't move mountains or shift paradigms. Rather, it's a character-study of two (extended) families who come together - one from Wales and the other from England - after the connection and marriage of a couple. It's an easy, fun, friendly watch. I wish there were more shows around like it, where each of the characters is good-hearted, loving, communally-minded, and thinks about and expresses love towards those in their lives, despite their faults. It's not ground-breaking, but it isn't contrived either. It's an honest slice-of-life, and it's lovely. It's not the laugh-a-minute slapstick comedy that British comedies often are. Rather, this is driven by the characters.

Highly recommended.

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.

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!