James Corden is going back to Gavin & Stacey

James Corden and his Gavin & Stacey co-creator are bringing the show back for a finale on Christmas 2024

James Corden is going back to Gavin & Stacey
James Corden and Ruth Jones Photo: Shutterstock

Sometimes when the chips are down and you’ve lost some shine stateside, the best thing to do is return to your roots. For James Corden, that doesn’t just mean going back to the United Kingdom. It means reviving his popular sitcom Gavin & Stacey one last time. Having finished his U.S. talk show The Late Late Show With James Corden successfully but with a somewhat diminished reputation, it only makes sense that he’d want to revert back to a situation both comfortable and much beloved.

Corden shared a photo on social media with his co-creator Ruth Jones holding up a script, with the caption, “Some news… It’s official!!! We have finished writing the last ever episode of Gavin and Stacey. See you on Christmas Day, BBC One. Love Ruth and James.”

For us yanks, Gavin & Stacey is a sitcom that aired primarily from 2007 to 2010, about a guy named Gavin (Matthew Horne) from Essex and a girl named Stacey (Joanna Page) from Wales who meet and fall in love. Corden and Jones play the couple’s best friends, Smithy and Nessa (respectively), who are initially antagonistic but end up having a baby together in their own will-they-won’t-they romance. The duo revived the series for a previous Christmas special in 2019, which ended on a cliffhanger of Nessa proposing to Smithy.

Brits sure love their Christmas specials (well, it works for Doctor Who), and the last Gavin & Stacey episode was the country’s most-watched scripted television program of the decade with more than 17 million viewers. Per Deadline, the rest of the gang—who play Gavin and Stacey’s family—are expected to return, including Rob Brydon, Alison Steadman, Larry Lamb and Julia Davis.

Corden’s first post-Late Late Show project has been his podcast This Life Of Mine, in which he interviews famous guests (Kim Kardashian, David Beckham, Martin Scorsese, and more) about the “people, places, possessions, music, and memories that made them.” During an appearance on The Today Show, Corden said his decision to end his talk show came from the desire to bring his young family back to England. “It’s been brilliant, and hard, and overwhelming. I think moving house is hard enough, moving children, moving schools—picking it up and going so far, from everything they knew from life in Los Angeles—it’s been a real challenge,” he said (via The New York Post). “It’s been tough. But at the same time, immensely rewarding…You’re only as happy as your least happy child.”

 
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