Ruth Jones, star and co-creator of hit BBC3 comedy Gavin & Stacey, is to turn her hand to drama by appearing in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens novel Little Dorrit. The period drama, which tells the story of the Dorrit family and the rich array of characters they meet on their way from rags to riches and back again, is being written by veteran screenwriter Andrew Davies, whose most recent project was Sense and Sensibility.
Jones, who made her name in the BBC3 comedies Little Britain and Nighty Night, will play "colourful character" Flora Casby, the childhood sweetheart of Arthur Clennam, played by Matthew Macfadyen. Little Dorrit, which is being billed as one of BBC1's highlights for the autumn, will air in the same soap opera format as Bleak House, the BBC's last major Dickens adaptation in 2005. An hour-long launch episode will be followed by 14 half-hour instalments.
Jones, who wrote Gavin and Stacey alongside James Corden, is also appearing in BBC1's forthcoming adaptation of Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. She is also writing a Gavin and Stacey Christmas special.
Mackenzie Crook, who shot the fame in The Office and stars in current movie release Three and Out, has also signed up to Little Dorrit. He plays office raconteur Harris, while Being Human's Claire Foy will take the lead as Amy Dorrit.
Tom Courtenay will play her father, while James Fleet, whose credits include The Vicar of Dibley and Four Weddings and a Funeral, will star as Amy's uncle, Frederick Dorrit. Amanda Redman has also been signed up, playing Mrs Merdle, while Lord of the Rings' Andy Serkis will appear as French villain Rigaud. Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman will also appear as Tattycoram.
Filming on the drama begins this week and will continue throughout the summer in locations in and around London, Buckinghamshire, Kent and Herefordshire. Made in-house by the BBC, Little Dorrit will be executive produced by Sense and Sensibility's Anne Pivcevic with Lisa Osborne producing.
Kate Harwood, head of BBC series and serials, said: "We are very proud to be presenting this wonderful line up of cast who will be bringing to life one of Dickens' broadest range of characters in a gripping, witty and touching script by the inimitable Andrew Davies. Part murder mystery, part love story, and wholly entertaining, Little Dorrit promises to be an autumn treat."
Showing posts with label Gavin and Stacey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gavin and Stacey. Show all posts
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Sunday, 27 April 2008
James Corden: The big time
A suspicion that has been buzzing for a little while became an official fact this week: James Corden is the hottest property in British television, says Robert Hanks. Gavin and Stacey, the romantic sitcom that Corden and Ruth Jones created, wrote and star in, won the Audience Award at the Baftas – in effect, the prize for most-loved programme. It's an achievement that is especially remarkable given that the series goes out on the digital channel BBC3, where audiences are not large. And Corden himself scooped the award for Best Comedy Performance.
Since then, the BBC has announced that Corden and Mathew Horne, who plays Gavin, are to get their own series on BBC3 – described as "a traditional comedy entertainment show in the style of Morecambe and Wise", though that characterisation is somewhat undermined by the proposed title, Horne and Corden Have Come. Meanwhile, NBC has bought the rights to make a US version of Gavin and Stacey, signing up Corden and Jones as executive producers of the pilot. This is success on a Ricky Gervais scale – a comparison that has more point when you recall that it was NBC that made The Office a hit in America.
For those who haven't seen it – still the vast majority of the British public – Gavin and Stacey follows the romance between Gavin, from Billericay in Essex, and Stacey, from Barry Island in South Wales, who after six months flirting over the telephone at work meet, fall in love, and decide to get married. But there are complications, not least their best friends, Gavin's loud, childish sidekick Smithy, and Stacey's older, experienced – very experienced – mate Nessa, played by Corden and Jones respectively. Their anti-romance, involving mutual hostility and insults, several regrettable drunken flings, and, in the second series, Nessa's pregnancy, provides a slightly darker, funnier counterpoint to the predominantly optimistic tone of Gavin and Stacey's own relationship.
The show has two exceedingly rare qualities. The first is its fundamental sweetness – none of the cynicism, the need to épater les bourgeois that characterises so much modern comedy. Gavin and Stacey have their ups and downs: in the first series, the engagement barely survived Gavin's discovery that Stacey had been engaged five times before; in the second, the couple underwent a prolonged separation after Stacey, living in Billericay with Gavin's parents, began to feel that the cultural barriers between them were too big to overcome. But their love each other is never in doubt, and the most hardened viewer will end up rooting for them to make a go of things.
The other point is that, as Corden has noted, "everything I do is inspired by truth". Admittedly, this came moments after he had jokingly claimed, while presenting a film award to Keira Knightley in her absence, that he had been shagging the actress for the past three days: "Some of it sensual, sensual lovemaking, but on the whole quite brutal. Took me by surprise, quite dark, a lot of it." But others have backed him up.
Henry Normal, who with Steve Coogan runs the production company Baby Cow, recalls that when Corden and Jones first brought their script for Gavin and Stacey to him he was struck by "the working-class truth of what they were writing". Normal knows what he is talking about, having been co-writer of the first series of The Royle Family, which Corden has cited as a big influence, along with the film director Mike Leigh. (He appeared in Leigh's film All or Nothing in 2002.)
Normal is used to seeing scripts full of funny lines that could be said by anybody; with Gavin and Stacey, "every person there is a distinctive character. When you read it on the page, every character has a distinct way of talking. That's quite an art". So Stacey is always upbeat, always looking for the positive, even when sad; and Nessa has a whole idiolect, including her customary mobile-phone greeting "What's occurring?" (the closest the programme has to a catchphrase, and now a popular mobile ring-tone in its own right).
Nicholas Hytner, who directed Corden in the original stage production and subsequent film of Alan Bennett's The History Boys, saw the scripts for Gavin and Stacey quite early on. "I was expecting them to be good, because he is extraordinarily funny and clever, but I was bowled over by them. They were actually looking at the world and writing about it with a degree of humanity which is more or less extinct among those who adopt the current comedy formula."
Most writers for TV, theatre and film, he suggests, tend to recycle things they have already seen. "People who write a script, for instance, about a wedding, write about how weddings get written about in plays and films. You watch what James and Ruth wrote about a wedding, and you say, 'Oh my God, that's what weddings are like.'" This is percipient: the germ of Gavin and Stacey was an actual wedding Corden attended in Barry, and he and Jones were insistent that it should all be shot on location.
Corden's own background was unremarkable suburbia, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. He was by his own account a poor school student, quitting A-levels to act: it's interesting that he has typically been cast as a clever boy, playing a swot in the Channel 4 comedy Teachers, as well as one of the Oxbridge scholarship class in The History Boys. Given his obvious quickness and intelligence, his indifferent academic record probably says more about the English educational system than it does about him.
The two features of his childhood that stand out are his early and burning desire to act, and the utter sense of love and security bestowed on him by his parents: something he has spoken about in interviews, and of which Hytner has observed: "His mum and dad are lovely. On the odd occasion they appeared at the theatre or on set, you thought, 'Lucky old James.'"
This must account for his remarkable self-confidence – all the more remarkable given that he is, in his own words, a "chunky unit" in a business that generally adopts a narrow view of physical attractiveness. In his diary for 2004, Alan Bennett noted that Corden simply took charge of his own audition for The History Boys. That's also Hytner's recollection – "He blew in, he took over, he had the part within seven and a half seconds" – though at the time, there was barely a part to have. He ended up as Timms, the fat boy with a knack for telling teachers exactly what they want to hear, but with a sincerity that invites the suspicion that the piss is being taken; his most memorable scene had him role-playing as a prostitute in a French brothel, offering to show clients "ma prodigieuse poitrine", and showing an unnervingly feminine charm.
Confidence is what Lucy Lumsden, who as BBC comedy controller has commissioned the Horne and Corden series, noticed when she saw him in Cruise of the Gods, a one-off TV comedy from 2002, about actors from a long-defunct sci-fi programme reluctantly reunited on a fan cruise. Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and David Walliams were the big-name stars, but Corden, playing Brydon's son, managed to register his presence. "For somebody so young, he has such impact on screen, and such obvious confidence – that's something you don't forget easily." (This was a key moment in Corden's career: not only did Coogan's company go on to produce Gavin and Stacey, but also Brydon plays the key role of Stacey's repressed uncle Bryn.)
The confidence is obvious, too, in his increasingly frequent appearances at awards ceremonies and chat shows: as when, in March this year, he appeared on Lily Allen's BBC3 show and proceeded to flirt outrageously, telling her, "I don't think you realise how lovely you are." They have since been spotted about town together, and despite Corden's insistence that they are just good friends, the outlets that pay attention to this sort of thing have begun to take it for granted that they are an item.
This new presence on the gossip pages is merely the latest instalment in Corden's elevation to "sex god", as he proclaimed himself at the Baftas. Messages are exchanged on websites about his relationship status – until recently he was dating Sheridan Smith, who plays Smithy's sister in Gavin and Stacey – his lovely blue eyes, sense of humour, and other attributes. The appeal cuts across gender divides: an American gay website called chubarama.net has taken to referring to Corden as "my future husband". Corden himself seems to revel in a touch of sexual ambiguity: presenting a theatre award to Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe earlier this year, he seized the actor and subjected him to a long, intense-looking kiss. (Corden denied afterwards that tongues were involved.)
There is one other aspect of Corden's character that deserves comment, and that helps to account for his success: he sticks by his friends. People like to work with him again. His first role, at the age of 20, was in Kay Mellor's weight-watchers comedy-drama Fat Friends; from that came his friendship with Jones (to whom he paid tribute in a genuinely touching acceptance speech at the Baftas), as well as Alison Steadman, who plays Stacey's mother. After a couple of years of touring as well as the film, half the cast of The History Boys ended up in Gavin and Stacey.
Hytner says: "He's phenomenally good company. Hysterically funny to be with, and doesn't give a shit. When the mighty Hollywood executives came to visit us [during filming of The History Boys] and took us out to dinner, all James wanted to tell him was what crap he'd been responsible for for the past 10 years: 'You can't actually have thought that was good when you were making it.' And somehow got away with it." Could I point out, Hytner asks, that he would love to have Corden back at the National Theatre: as actor or playwright, he doesn't specify. Either way, it would be worth seeing.
Since then, the BBC has announced that Corden and Mathew Horne, who plays Gavin, are to get their own series on BBC3 – described as "a traditional comedy entertainment show in the style of Morecambe and Wise", though that characterisation is somewhat undermined by the proposed title, Horne and Corden Have Come. Meanwhile, NBC has bought the rights to make a US version of Gavin and Stacey, signing up Corden and Jones as executive producers of the pilot. This is success on a Ricky Gervais scale – a comparison that has more point when you recall that it was NBC that made The Office a hit in America.
For those who haven't seen it – still the vast majority of the British public – Gavin and Stacey follows the romance between Gavin, from Billericay in Essex, and Stacey, from Barry Island in South Wales, who after six months flirting over the telephone at work meet, fall in love, and decide to get married. But there are complications, not least their best friends, Gavin's loud, childish sidekick Smithy, and Stacey's older, experienced – very experienced – mate Nessa, played by Corden and Jones respectively. Their anti-romance, involving mutual hostility and insults, several regrettable drunken flings, and, in the second series, Nessa's pregnancy, provides a slightly darker, funnier counterpoint to the predominantly optimistic tone of Gavin and Stacey's own relationship.
The show has two exceedingly rare qualities. The first is its fundamental sweetness – none of the cynicism, the need to épater les bourgeois that characterises so much modern comedy. Gavin and Stacey have their ups and downs: in the first series, the engagement barely survived Gavin's discovery that Stacey had been engaged five times before; in the second, the couple underwent a prolonged separation after Stacey, living in Billericay with Gavin's parents, began to feel that the cultural barriers between them were too big to overcome. But their love each other is never in doubt, and the most hardened viewer will end up rooting for them to make a go of things.
The other point is that, as Corden has noted, "everything I do is inspired by truth". Admittedly, this came moments after he had jokingly claimed, while presenting a film award to Keira Knightley in her absence, that he had been shagging the actress for the past three days: "Some of it sensual, sensual lovemaking, but on the whole quite brutal. Took me by surprise, quite dark, a lot of it." But others have backed him up.
Henry Normal, who with Steve Coogan runs the production company Baby Cow, recalls that when Corden and Jones first brought their script for Gavin and Stacey to him he was struck by "the working-class truth of what they were writing". Normal knows what he is talking about, having been co-writer of the first series of The Royle Family, which Corden has cited as a big influence, along with the film director Mike Leigh. (He appeared in Leigh's film All or Nothing in 2002.)
Normal is used to seeing scripts full of funny lines that could be said by anybody; with Gavin and Stacey, "every person there is a distinctive character. When you read it on the page, every character has a distinct way of talking. That's quite an art". So Stacey is always upbeat, always looking for the positive, even when sad; and Nessa has a whole idiolect, including her customary mobile-phone greeting "What's occurring?" (the closest the programme has to a catchphrase, and now a popular mobile ring-tone in its own right).
Nicholas Hytner, who directed Corden in the original stage production and subsequent film of Alan Bennett's The History Boys, saw the scripts for Gavin and Stacey quite early on. "I was expecting them to be good, because he is extraordinarily funny and clever, but I was bowled over by them. They were actually looking at the world and writing about it with a degree of humanity which is more or less extinct among those who adopt the current comedy formula."
Most writers for TV, theatre and film, he suggests, tend to recycle things they have already seen. "People who write a script, for instance, about a wedding, write about how weddings get written about in plays and films. You watch what James and Ruth wrote about a wedding, and you say, 'Oh my God, that's what weddings are like.'" This is percipient: the germ of Gavin and Stacey was an actual wedding Corden attended in Barry, and he and Jones were insistent that it should all be shot on location.
Corden's own background was unremarkable suburbia, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. He was by his own account a poor school student, quitting A-levels to act: it's interesting that he has typically been cast as a clever boy, playing a swot in the Channel 4 comedy Teachers, as well as one of the Oxbridge scholarship class in The History Boys. Given his obvious quickness and intelligence, his indifferent academic record probably says more about the English educational system than it does about him.
The two features of his childhood that stand out are his early and burning desire to act, and the utter sense of love and security bestowed on him by his parents: something he has spoken about in interviews, and of which Hytner has observed: "His mum and dad are lovely. On the odd occasion they appeared at the theatre or on set, you thought, 'Lucky old James.'"
This must account for his remarkable self-confidence – all the more remarkable given that he is, in his own words, a "chunky unit" in a business that generally adopts a narrow view of physical attractiveness. In his diary for 2004, Alan Bennett noted that Corden simply took charge of his own audition for The History Boys. That's also Hytner's recollection – "He blew in, he took over, he had the part within seven and a half seconds" – though at the time, there was barely a part to have. He ended up as Timms, the fat boy with a knack for telling teachers exactly what they want to hear, but with a sincerity that invites the suspicion that the piss is being taken; his most memorable scene had him role-playing as a prostitute in a French brothel, offering to show clients "ma prodigieuse poitrine", and showing an unnervingly feminine charm.
Confidence is what Lucy Lumsden, who as BBC comedy controller has commissioned the Horne and Corden series, noticed when she saw him in Cruise of the Gods, a one-off TV comedy from 2002, about actors from a long-defunct sci-fi programme reluctantly reunited on a fan cruise. Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and David Walliams were the big-name stars, but Corden, playing Brydon's son, managed to register his presence. "For somebody so young, he has such impact on screen, and such obvious confidence – that's something you don't forget easily." (This was a key moment in Corden's career: not only did Coogan's company go on to produce Gavin and Stacey, but also Brydon plays the key role of Stacey's repressed uncle Bryn.)
The confidence is obvious, too, in his increasingly frequent appearances at awards ceremonies and chat shows: as when, in March this year, he appeared on Lily Allen's BBC3 show and proceeded to flirt outrageously, telling her, "I don't think you realise how lovely you are." They have since been spotted about town together, and despite Corden's insistence that they are just good friends, the outlets that pay attention to this sort of thing have begun to take it for granted that they are an item.
This new presence on the gossip pages is merely the latest instalment in Corden's elevation to "sex god", as he proclaimed himself at the Baftas. Messages are exchanged on websites about his relationship status – until recently he was dating Sheridan Smith, who plays Smithy's sister in Gavin and Stacey – his lovely blue eyes, sense of humour, and other attributes. The appeal cuts across gender divides: an American gay website called chubarama.net has taken to referring to Corden as "my future husband". Corden himself seems to revel in a touch of sexual ambiguity: presenting a theatre award to Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe earlier this year, he seized the actor and subjected him to a long, intense-looking kiss. (Corden denied afterwards that tongues were involved.)
There is one other aspect of Corden's character that deserves comment, and that helps to account for his success: he sticks by his friends. People like to work with him again. His first role, at the age of 20, was in Kay Mellor's weight-watchers comedy-drama Fat Friends; from that came his friendship with Jones (to whom he paid tribute in a genuinely touching acceptance speech at the Baftas), as well as Alison Steadman, who plays Stacey's mother. After a couple of years of touring as well as the film, half the cast of The History Boys ended up in Gavin and Stacey.
Hytner says: "He's phenomenally good company. Hysterically funny to be with, and doesn't give a shit. When the mighty Hollywood executives came to visit us [during filming of The History Boys] and took us out to dinner, all James wanted to tell him was what crap he'd been responsible for for the past 10 years: 'You can't actually have thought that was good when you were making it.' And somehow got away with it." Could I point out, Hytner asks, that he would love to have Corden back at the National Theatre: as actor or playwright, he doesn't specify. Either way, it would be worth seeing.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Gavin and Stacey stars pen sketch show
BBC3 controller Danny Cohen has commissioned Bafta award winner James Corden to make a new sketch show which he has co-written with his Gavin & Stacey co-star Mathew Horne.
The six part comedy series, which has the working title Horne and Corden Have Come, is being made by independent producer Tiger Aspect and will be directed by Kathy Burke.
According to the BBC the new series will be "designed as a traditional comedy entertainment show in the style of Morecambe and Wise" and will see the duo perform as themselves in front of a studio audience.
"Their intention is to make it like a traditional comedy entertainment show," said Tiger Aspect's head of comedy, Sophie Clarke-Jervoise. "They're moving away from the Little Britain and Catherine Tate formula where it's all character-led," she added. "In Gavin & Stacey, Mat and James have proved themselves to be Britain's best new comedy partnership and we're very much looking forward to presenting their brilliant new characters on BBC3."
Corden and Horne will trial their material in front of audiences in a tour starting next week and may bring in other scriptwriters, according to the BBC. The series will be executive produced by Clarke-Jervoise and her Tiger Aspect colleague Geoffrey Perkins and is planned for broadcast in early 2009. This commission completes a good week for Corden, who won the best comedy performer Bafta for Gavin & Stacey, the comedy he co-writes and co-stars in, and which also won the Sky+ audience award at Sunday's ceremony.
A BBC spokeswoman said today that no decision had been made on whether a third series of Gavin & Stacey would be commissioned. At the Baftas, Corden's co-writer Ruth Jones confirmed that they were currently working on a Christmas special of the show but added: "We never intended to write a second series let alone a third. We don't want it to become predictable. We will see how the Christmas special goes and take it from there." Corden also revealed at the Baftas: "We will write one if we can make it better. We have to be true to ourselves."
Elsewhere, the Gavin and Stacey critical backlash has started- at least from one Guardian journalist who Corden labelled a "fucking twat" at this week's Baftas. In his blog, Gareth McLean responded:
The six part comedy series, which has the working title Horne and Corden Have Come, is being made by independent producer Tiger Aspect and will be directed by Kathy Burke.
According to the BBC the new series will be "designed as a traditional comedy entertainment show in the style of Morecambe and Wise" and will see the duo perform as themselves in front of a studio audience.
"Their intention is to make it like a traditional comedy entertainment show," said Tiger Aspect's head of comedy, Sophie Clarke-Jervoise. "They're moving away from the Little Britain and Catherine Tate formula where it's all character-led," she added. "In Gavin & Stacey, Mat and James have proved themselves to be Britain's best new comedy partnership and we're very much looking forward to presenting their brilliant new characters on BBC3."
Corden and Horne will trial their material in front of audiences in a tour starting next week and may bring in other scriptwriters, according to the BBC. The series will be executive produced by Clarke-Jervoise and her Tiger Aspect colleague Geoffrey Perkins and is planned for broadcast in early 2009. This commission completes a good week for Corden, who won the best comedy performer Bafta for Gavin & Stacey, the comedy he co-writes and co-stars in, and which also won the Sky+ audience award at Sunday's ceremony.
A BBC spokeswoman said today that no decision had been made on whether a third series of Gavin & Stacey would be commissioned. At the Baftas, Corden's co-writer Ruth Jones confirmed that they were currently working on a Christmas special of the show but added: "We never intended to write a second series let alone a third. We don't want it to become predictable. We will see how the Christmas special goes and take it from there." Corden also revealed at the Baftas: "We will write one if we can make it better. We have to be true to ourselves."
Elsewhere, the Gavin and Stacey critical backlash has started- at least from one Guardian journalist who Corden labelled a "fucking twat" at this week's Baftas. In his blog, Gareth McLean responded:
Even if James Corden hadn't called me "a fucking twat" in front of a room full of people, I'd still think Pulling was better than Gavin & Stacey. Indeed, it's because I have the temerity to suggest that Gavin & Stacey is anything other than absolutely brilliant - and is actually pedestrian, sentimental, old-fashioned and schmaltzy and now overrated to boot - that Corden chose to aim his rapier-sharp wit in my direction.
Clearly, I'm devastated.
Judging from his ungracious performance at the Baftas, no one is more convinced of Corden's comedy genius than he and anything less than adoration is considered sacrilege. Accepting the audience award - and having already won an award for best comedy performance - he moaned that Gavin & Stacey didn't make the shortlist for best sitcom. So with two awards, he still wasn't content. Talk about a sore winner.
That Gavin and Stacey has nabbed two Baftas, three British Comedy Awards, a South Bank Show award and a Broadcasting Press Guild award would suggest that a lot of people like it. I can understand why. It's undemanding, inoffensive and at a time when comedy has been dark and dysfunctional, and centred on cynical middle-aged men - from Curb through Extras to Lead Balloon - it's refreshingly romantic and optimistic. Indeed, it's this old-fashioned quality which makes it so new.
This is also one of the reasons I prefer Pulling. Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly's infinitely superior, much dirtier and so much funnier sitcom has been as overlooked as Gavin & Stacey has been overrated. From its exquisitely excruciating first episode in which Donna (Horgan) dumped fiancé Karl, it's been so close to the bone you can smell the marrow. Whether it's her outrage that Karl slept with her frienemy little fat Tanya or her disgust that the police don't care that someone stole her kebab - "What if it was a handbag made out of pitta?"- Donna is a raging egomaniac. And though there have been plenty of vile, selfish and unaware male characters in comedy, it's rare to have a woman so awful - the last was, I think, Nighty Night's Jill.
And Pulling doesn't just boast Donna. There are Karen and Louise too. In the first series, Rebekah Staton as Louise went accidentally dogging and become obsessed with internet porn. In the second series, she's become a thrill-seeker shoplifter and almost an entrepreneur with her "cocklolees" - lollies shaped as, yes, cocks. (I know it's juvenile but it's bloody funny). She's part wide-eyed ingénue and part deranged nymphomaniac.
Which brings us to my personal favourite, Karen (Tanya Franks). A "mean, alcoholic slag", according to Louise, she's provided some of the show's funniest moments - mostly when she's drinking, drunk (battering an apple!) or hungover, She's had a mouse on her pillow, countless dreadful men in her bed and, more than once, has woken up in a classroom. She's a primary school teacher, you see. Another stroke of brilliance on a canvas full of them. Why Frank - or indeed Horgan - haven't been applauded for their performances, I have no idea.
As the second series careers towards what seems as if it will be a suitably smashing finale, someone tell me - how is Gavin & Stacey superior to this superb specimen? Hmmmm?
Saturday, 8 March 2008
New faces at comedy's top table
The award-winning BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey is about to return. Its creators tell Jasper Rees what inspired it...'When we met those girls on the train the other day they went, 'Oh yeah, what's that thing you did? Kevin and Tracey or something?'" Ruth Jones is sanguine about the impact of Gavin and Stacey. The comedy series, which Jones co-wrote and appeared in, about a whirlwind romance between a sweet Welsh girl from Barry and a nice Essex boy from Billericay, may recently have won two British Comedy awards and a South Bank Show award.
But the fact that it was shown on BBC3 meant that, after its first outing, most people didn't know Gavin and Stacey from Adam and Eve. "I kind of feel that the show doesn't exclude anyone," says Jones's co-writer James Corden, "and that people up and down the country could watch it." But then, as he ruefully admits: "A lot of them haven't." However, a week ago, Corden's dream of mass exposure came true.
To pave the way for the relaunch of BBC3, which the second series of Gavin and Stacey will be leading, BBC2 set aside three hours for the transmission of the entire first series. If you had the stamina, this was a stroke of scheduling genius. Swallowing the show in one chunk brought out flavours rarely tasted in half-hour comedy: a propulsive plot and a capacity to tug unmanipulatively at the heart strings. This comedy is also brave enough to field two main characters, winningly played by Matthew Horne and Joanna Page, who barely raise a laugh between them.
But Gavin and Stacey is immoderately funny too. The performers take a fair whack of the credit, not just Alison Steadman as Gavin's neurotic Essex mum with her bizarre Camilla fetish and Rob Brydon as Stacey's well-meaning and deeply closeted uncle, but also Corden and Jones as the central couple's amorously challenged best friends Nessa and Smithy. But it's their work as debutant writers that gives the cast the tools for the job. Jones, 41, was previously best known as Myfanwy, the lesbian barmaid in Little Britain's 'Only Gay in the Village' sketches. Corden, 27, has had his greatest success on stage and screen as one of the pupils in The History Boys.
The pair met in 2000 when cast in Fat Friends, the ITV drama set in and around a slimmers' club, and discovered a shared taste for The Royle Family, Cold Feet and Mike Leigh (Corden was in Leigh's film All or Nothing). "I remember thinking how talented he was for such a young person," says Jones.
During the third series of Fat Friends the idea for a comedy about a cross-border wedding was floated by Corden in the pub, based on the story of a friend who had to call a woman daily for work, started flirting and ended up marrying her. He was called Gavin. But Corden insists it was Jones who got it down on paper. "I would have completely forgotten about this but Ruth's determination just drove it through. I remember her going, 'We've got to write this down. We'll bang out this treatment and we'll send it off.'" The characters and back stories were fleshed out, and BBC3 commissioned a whole series straight off.
"We looked back on the treatment the other day," says Jones, "and it's not as warm; there's a lot of swearing in it, which we now don't have." It's the warmth that is captivating, that makes you care about the characters. That includes the pair played by the writers, whose generous proportions are unsparingly mined for both laughs and pathos.
Corden plays Smithy as a matey extrovert whose terror of women finds him tied by the apron strings to an unseen girlfriend who's just shy of 18. As Nessa, Jones has the distrustful carapace of the serially wounded sexual adventuress. Among her previous conquests Nessa lists John Prescott, Nigel Havers and two al-Fayeds (though she hasn't heard from the latter in a while).
Where Gavin and Stacey fall in love on their first date up in London, their sidekicks in the adjoining suite noisily and unknowingly put a bun in the oven. In the daringly unfunny final scene of the first series, she nearly tells him, then decides against it. The romance comes from Corden, who says he wanted to tap into "that vulnerability that guys have when they fall in love. There are many many times when you double-check yourself and think, as a man I shouldn't be driving for four hours just to kiss someone. And yet we all do it."
In the second series (which comes to BBC3 this month) Stacey goes to live with Gavin and his parents - look out for a painfully embarrassing breakfast scene with bedsprings squeaking rhythmically overhead - while Nessa's pregnancy needs to be resolved. There will also be a long-planned Christmas special. Beyond that, the writers are not sure. "We always wanted to see these characters at Christmas," says Jones. "But it would be a shame to find people saying, 'Oh God, they're playing the same note over and over again. You've got that problem with contriving the two worlds coming together. How long can you really convince people that that could happen?"
Corden likes the idea of writing a spin-off series starring Brydon as uncle Bryn. "There's like a whole world behind him. You hand this stuff over to an actor like Rob and it just gets better." As for other writing, together they're also adapting Cinderella as a modern-day musical adaptation for the BBC, while Jones has completed the first draft of a drama for BBC1 on her own and Corden is writing a sketch show with Horne, who was once part of stand-up duo Mat and Mackinnon.
And what of the original Gavin? What does he make of his friend's dramatisation of his courtship? "When I told him on the phone," says Corden, "at every point he'd go, 'Oh fuck off… Oh fuck off… Oh fuck off… I can't believe this!'" The reason Gavin and Stacey works is that everyone else can believe it.
Gavin and Stacey returns to British screens on BBC3, Sun March 16 at 9pm.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Gavin & Stacey to be given US remake
A sitcom dreamt up at a wedding is set to become the next trans-Atlantic hit after NBC bought the rights to remake the BBC series Gavin & Stacey. The story of a whirlwind romance between an Essex boy and a Welsh girl became a cult hit on BBC Three and won British Comedy Awards for its writer-stars. Critics praised the show, which featured a cast, including Rob Brydon and Alison Steadman, for its observant writing and the programme was swiftly promoted to BBC Two.
NBC, which turned The Office into a prime-time US hit, has acquired the rights to remake Gavin & Stacey from Baby Cow, the production company run by Steve Coogan. The Alan Partridge star will oversee the US production along with its creators, James Corden, who took a leading role in Alan Bennet’s The History Boys, and Ruth Jones, who appeared in Little Britain. Corden, 29, told The Times: "It’s really exciting. The idea is that Gavin will come from New Jersey, which has the same relation to New York as Essex does to London. Stacey will be from South Carolina. They meet in Times Square. I hope they keep the British names but they may have to change them."
In the BBC show, the protagonists decide to get married within weeks of meeting on a blind date. Corden and Jones play their unreliable friends. But the chaos caused by Gavin & Stacey’s parents as they prepare for the wedding plays an equal role. The idea came to Corden during a wedding reception. "I suddenly saw the whole event framed like a picture," he said. "I wanted to know the stories behind the couple, friends and families." Corden and Welsh actress Jones, 41, who met on the ITV drama series Fat Friends, submitted the idea as a one-off play to the BBC but the corporation immediately demanded a full series.
BBC Three has high hopes for the second series which begins this month. Although the £90 million channel was created for a "youth" audience, Gavin & Stacey, which largely avoids bad language, has attracted a cross-generational audience. Jones and Corden both won Best Comedy Newcomer (female and male) at the British Comedy Awards last December. The second series deals with post-wedding blues and pregnancy.
Corden said he expected Gavin & Stacey to conclude with a Christmas special. But NBC, which extended The Office beyond the original 12 episodes with Ricky Gervais’ approval, is seeking a long-running hit to match its retired classics Friends and Frasier. The BBC has now asked Corden and Jones to create a sketch show and they are considering film screenwriting offers. With stardom beckoning, auditions are becoming a memory. Corden said: "It’s great that I don’t have to read lines for jobs I don’t want anymore."
NBC, which turned The Office into a prime-time US hit, has acquired the rights to remake Gavin & Stacey from Baby Cow, the production company run by Steve Coogan. The Alan Partridge star will oversee the US production along with its creators, James Corden, who took a leading role in Alan Bennet’s The History Boys, and Ruth Jones, who appeared in Little Britain. Corden, 29, told The Times: "It’s really exciting. The idea is that Gavin will come from New Jersey, which has the same relation to New York as Essex does to London. Stacey will be from South Carolina. They meet in Times Square. I hope they keep the British names but they may have to change them."
In the BBC show, the protagonists decide to get married within weeks of meeting on a blind date. Corden and Jones play their unreliable friends. But the chaos caused by Gavin & Stacey’s parents as they prepare for the wedding plays an equal role. The idea came to Corden during a wedding reception. "I suddenly saw the whole event framed like a picture," he said. "I wanted to know the stories behind the couple, friends and families." Corden and Welsh actress Jones, 41, who met on the ITV drama series Fat Friends, submitted the idea as a one-off play to the BBC but the corporation immediately demanded a full series.
BBC Three has high hopes for the second series which begins this month. Although the £90 million channel was created for a "youth" audience, Gavin & Stacey, which largely avoids bad language, has attracted a cross-generational audience. Jones and Corden both won Best Comedy Newcomer (female and male) at the British Comedy Awards last December. The second series deals with post-wedding blues and pregnancy.
Corden said he expected Gavin & Stacey to conclude with a Christmas special. But NBC, which extended The Office beyond the original 12 episodes with Ricky Gervais’ approval, is seeking a long-running hit to match its retired classics Friends and Frasier. The BBC has now asked Corden and Jones to create a sketch show and they are considering film screenwriting offers. With stardom beckoning, auditions are becoming a memory. Corden said: "It’s great that I don’t have to read lines for jobs I don’t want anymore."
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