Joanna Page

Joanna Page: 'They said I was rubbish'

She made it through ten years of bit parts to play Stacey in the hit comedy, but the actress says that she is ready to be a housewife.

I'll Stace 20 Years

Actress Joanna Page says she'd be happy to do Gavin & Stacey for another 20 years.

The series about how a nice boy from Essex and a sweet girl from Barry in south Wales fell in love and married has been an astounding success and won a stash of prestigious awards for writers James Corden and Ruth Jones, who also star in the show as Smithy and Nessa.

Following its BBC3 airing this year, BBC1 is giving fans and those who missed this comedy gem first time around the opportunity to view the second series in which newlyweds Gavin and Stacey (Mathew Horne and Joanna Page) return from honeymoon to a big welcome from both families and adjust to married life.

We're more than halfway through the latest series of Gavin and Stacey and so far, hardly anything has actually, you know, happened. But that's all to the good, because I reckon this is the funniest, most warm-hearted sitcom on telly for ages.

What's great is that all the characters in the series are likable, with even the more overt comic characters like Uncle Bryn and Nessa being fully rounded and sympathetic, without simply being used to set up jokes. The performances are exceptional too - James Corden is a great comedy actor and lights up the screen whenever he appears, and although some people seem to be finding Joanna Page a bit annoying, I think she's playing it just right, and her accent just makes the lines funnier.

Gavin and Stacey, back for its second series on BBC Three, continues to pose the question: who are the real stars of this thing? The pair were back from their honeymoon in Greece. It was "nice". But who wanted to hear about that when Stacey's friend Nessa still hadn't told Gavin's friend Smithy that she had his bun in her capacious oven? Mathew Horne and Joanna Page play the nominal leads with such Christ-like modesty that one feels vaguely aggrieved on their behalf that the best lines are written for Smithy and Nessa by the very actors who play them.

Mind you, James Corden and Ruth Jones came up with some crackers as they elaborated further on Nessa's extensive "Past". It turned out Nessa had driven the lorries for The Who's world tour. "Until I found out some things about Pete Townshend I didn't like. All I'll say - and I said it to his face - is where's the book?" This comedy is less mild than it looks and even funnier than I remembered.