Gavin & Stacey: The End

The final episode of the popular BBC3 (now BBC1) series Gavin and Stacey screens on New Year’s Day. But, in a canny marketing ploy, the series is already out on DVD, and I just watched the final episodes. To be honest, I found this final series a bit scrappy and rushed as a whole - and, sad to say, it reaches the most phoney, contrived and banal of conclusions. The new characters didn’t really take; many elements were introduced only to fizzle out; and Joanna Page's Stacey unfortunately became an irritant. But the glory of G&S has always been in its details, rather than its conventional and sometimes soapy plotting. It was a series of quirky moments and lovely non-sequiturs, and one that - a rarity these days -had genuine warmth and affection for its characters. I loved the barn dance, the fishing trip mystery, the oven gloves, the omelettes, the singalongs, the cultural refs. A throwaway line about “that big strawberry blonde fella from Patch Adams” in the final series sums up this show’s appeal for me. I’ll miss it.