Gavin & Stacey

In hard times, it's the Gavin and Staceys we want

Modern sitcoms may seem cutting age, but they are more conservative than ever. And they are driven by old-fashioned virtues.

Gavin and Stacey are a warm bath with razor blades

Contrary to the general opinion, there are plenty of sharp corners to this comedy's comfy, plushly upholstered format.

Gavin & Stacey (BBC1) are back for a third and, we are told, final series. But we won't dwell on that because the thought of television schedules bereft of this last tiny bastion of warmth, wit and occasional tiny oubliettes full of wisdom is one I cannot hold for long without tears starting to brim.

It is Gavin's first day at his new job, now that he and Stacey have moved back to Barry. He is trying to present a professional front to his boss while fielding the vast array of phone calls, presents and sandwiches that are the unsought side-effects of close family relations.

I still can't see how anyone can be even tangentially involved with, never mind married to, Stacey without large doses of drugs and/or therapy, but Nessa continues to draw the sting of her presence with her own magnificently disaffected progress through life. She has strapped baby Neil to her back so that he no longer impedes her smoking. She has delegated all the cooking for his christening to Gwen, and is planning to spend the remainder of the £6,000 Doris lent her on vaginal rejuvenation. Oh, and the christening do is doubling as an engagement party for her and Dave: a discovery that naturally pains Neil's dad, Smithy, and not just because he stumped up 400 quid for costs before she told him. Is there a flicker of yearning behind Nessa's eyes as Smithy takes the baby for a photo, portending a happy ending for these two kebab-crossed lovers? Or has she just realised that she's left a packet of fags in his nappy?

In the closing scenes, Stacey and Gavin decide that they will start trying for a baby. I wouldn't trust Stacey with an uncapped Biro myself, but who listens to me?

Gavin & Stacey: series three, episode one

Gavin is feeling homesick in Cardiff as the clan get set to reunite for the christening of baby Neil.

Gavin & Stacey, BBC One, review

Michael Hogan reviews the return of the popular Anglo-Welsh sitcom Gavin & Stacey.

Their sketch show was an obnoxious, homophobic mess, so it's probably wise that Mathew Horne and James Corden have returned in the show that first made them popular, Gavin & Stacey. The first episode of this final series was like a warm bath: slightly eccentric characters, love and empathy bubbling around the intertwined lives of three families. Gavin has moved to Wales to work and live with Stacey and was bored. His first day at work was littered with grating, if sweet, interventions - balloons, phone messages, a packed lunch from Rob Brydon's Uncle Bryn - which delighted his new, and yes kooky, colleagues.

You can see why Gavin & Stacey is universally loved: the dialogue is carefully colloquial, everyone has their turn, it affirms family and friendship, has a dark edge - but for this viewer there is a sense of old tricks being recycled. Everyone's quirks ("What's occurrin'?") are so well-worn they have lost their magic.

The only distinctive performances are Ruth Jones's monotone Nessa, with baby (who is with her though concealed at all times) and the marvellous, foul-mouthed Doris/Dor (Margaret John) who stuck two fingers up at the expectation that she'd make salad for the christening party. You should root for Corden's Smithy, father of Nessa's baby and trying to find a role for himself now his best friend has moved away and the mother of his child is with a new partner, but he's supremely irritating and unfunny.

Video: I live in Stacey's house

Barry resident Glenda Keynon has welcomed hundreds of Gavin and Stacey fans into her living room since the popular sitcom show began.

Legend has it James Corden and Ruth Jones thought long and hard about the whys and wherefores and the what's occurrings involved in a third series of Gavin & Stacey (BBC1). As it stood, they had two perfectly formed series and one special, so cult status was assured. Stretch it out and the danger was it could all go a bit My Family. So it was a relief to find that, at least in parts, the charms of G&S - not just a sitcom, but an Anglo-Welsh melange of social integration, drizzled with dollops of juicy profanity - were still cooking with gas. With Gavin relocated to Wales for work, there was scope for surreal culture shock.

When a new colleague introduced himself with the words: 'My name is Owain Hughes. And before you ask, no I don't,' you shared his fish-out-ofwater befuddlement - unless you were Uncle Bryn, in which case you found it hilarious. It must be a Welsh thing. The story picked up with the christening of Nessa and Smithy's baby, an ideal excuse to throw the two halves of the G&S extended family together. And that was where the niggles started: when you wanted to get reacquainted with the principal players, the focus kept shifting to a ragbag of minor characters who were little more than sitcom sketches. Bringing in Nessa's dad and Smithy's mum (Pam Ferris) over-egged a pudding already threatening to collapse under the weight of its wacky ingredients. The best of Gavin & Stacey is in the little details, the laugh or cry moments. But at times here, the comedy was drawn with a broader brush, built around a succession of conventions written in the sitcom rulebook. Funny, es, but more like a succession of g ags and comedy observations than the flesh and blood reality it felt like before. Which inspired mixed feelings - it's undoubtedly good to have Gavin & Stacey back but, on this evidence, it's going to be a little easier to say hello and wave goodbye than you might have thought.

Gavin And Stacey series 3 episode 1 review

It's the inherent good nature of all the characters in Gavin And Stacey that makes the comedy so winning and warming.

I can see why people like Gavin & Stacey, I really can. It's warm. It's cuddly. It's the celluloid equivalent of on a mug of tea and a slab of Dairy Milk. And it really is all of those things - Joanna Page, who plays Stacey is cute as a button, just Bridget-Jonesy enough for us empathise with, the type of lass any well-brought-up young girl would want to be friends with. And Mat Horne (Gavin) is, for want of a better word, fit. In a safe way. And well dressed, with the not-at-all-bad-looking Page as his girlfriend, so mothers like him and men have a degree of grudging respect for him. And then there's James Corden, who plays Gavin's best mate, Smithy, and everyone knows that James Corden's lovely. So yes: as Bob Hope would say, what's not to like?

Except, erm, I'm afraid I don't. Like it, that is. I like Ruth Jones, aka the indomitable Nessa, fag-smoking, drink-swilling best friend of - inexplicably - Stacey. But that's all. At least Nessa's funny, a quality which, it's worth pointing out, is rather useful when it comes to a comedy show. But apart from her, I can't fathom one of them. Not even Bryn, played with aplomb by Rob Brydon. He's too nice. Far, far too nice. They all are. The whole thing is. It's so nice, you cease to care. It becomes... elevator music.

But anyway, what do I know? Clearly, nothing. Seven million people watched the Christmas special last year, and seven million can't be wrong. Can they? Anyway, last night was the start of the third (and last) series, which saw Gavin settling into his new job in Barry, while the Essex crowd geared up for the christening of Smithy and Nessa's baby, named - wait for it - Neil Noel Edmond Smith. One of the few laugh-out loud jokes of the episode. Any Gavin & Stacey fan would have been thrilled, I'm sure. All the usual bumf was there: Stacey freaking out over an article she's read in Psychologies magazine, Bryn popping his head through Gavin's office window, Smithy ordering enough food for an entire army. Me? Well, like I said. Elevator music. Pleasant enough, no plans to buy the album.