What a perfect Christmas present – Smithy tearfully proposing to Nessa, in an echo of the scene that broke the nation’s hearts five years ago.
And this time, we got the answer we’ve all been waiting to hear. The feature-length "Gavin & Stacey" finale ended in wedding bells... or at least, karaoke down the pub.
The climax of the romcom created 17 years ago by James Corden and Ruth Jones delivered. From the beginning, their brilliant romcom perfectly offset its superficial sweetness with an undercurrent of sour edge. Best of all, it doubled as a joyous hymn to humdrum British life, instilling mind-numbing minutiae with cheer and turning mundane small talk into a kind of poetry.
Alison Steadman’s Pam fantasising about widowhood; the ever-excitable Stacey’s attempts to spice up her and Gavin’s love life (she wants them to roleplay as a landlady and her unreliable tenant, “a skaghead called Keith”); another tease about Bryn and Jason’s fishing trip (no, of course we don’t get any answers).
Yet it’s the pathologically unperturbed Nessa – a sitcom character for the ages – who provides the bulk of the comic relief, as she always has: vape in one hand, fag in the other; appropriating wokeness for financial gain; recounting an anecdote about co-habiting with Hale and Pace.
But she’s also more vulnerable than before. When her and Smithy’s 16-year-old son Neil departs for England – Nessa is also leaving Wales, to work on the ships in the strait of Malacca, naturally – the moment is played with a realism that is gut-wrenching. Really, the whole episode is shot through with profound bittersweetness.
And then, of course, there’s the denouement – a plot twist that feels inevitable, but whose engineering and execution is impeccable. In fact, the sheer cathartic perfection of the ending takes the sting out of the fact that this really is goodbye.
After crashing a coach through a hedge, in their desperate rush to stop Nessa from leaving the country, Smithy’s mates managed to reunite him with the love of his life.
Nessa was all kitted out in overalls and on the point of boarding a merchant ship to the Uruguayan port of Carrasco. Smithy caught up with her at the water’s edge in Southampton: ‘Five years ago on Christmas Day you asked me a question and I didn’t answer you,’ he pleaded. ‘Ask me again!’
‘No,’ retorted Nessa. ‘I only ever ask once. You had your chance.’
For a few seconds, it seemed as though all his hopes and ours were going to be dashed. But somehow, Smithy – a man who speaks in schoolboy catchphrases, and whose own emotions are a complete mystery to him – managed to find the words to woo her.
‘I know it’s a bit messy and not perfect,’ he stuttered. ‘But I love you, I always have. I mean, not always, but most of the time. Will you marry me?’
Real love, the messy kind, has been the bedrock of this show and the reason for its colossal popularity.
Mick is retired these days, devoting his spare time to golf and practising his putts in the living room, much to Pam’s irritation. He had the best speech of the show, telling Smithy at his stag do how he’d always be a part of their family.
This was a pledge that changed the course of the story because at that point, Smithy was blundering into marriage with the appalling Sonia (Laura Aikman). Everyone could see what a disaster that was going to be, and no one knew how to say it.
Stacey’s mum Gwen (Melanie Walters) finally got herself a fella, even if he was one of Nessa’s many former fiances, Dave Coaches (Steffan Rhodri).
And bestriding the show like a colossus was Nessa, one of TV’s great comic creations. We ended with their wedding. Perfect. Or, as she’d put it: tidy.
But that’s the lot for Gavin & Stacey now. People across Britain murmured a prayer of thanks to Jones and Corden, for not ruining Christmas evening with sub-standard TV. God, we’ll miss these characters. Oh my Christ, they were lush.
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