It's the end of an era for James Corden. The actor – who writes and stars in the hit sitcom, Gavin and Stacey – has penned the final episode alongside Ruth Jones. Appearing on Virgin Radio this week, James, 45, confirmed that the script is now complete, leaving him "very emotional."
"Rewriting is really difficult. Writing is really fun because you can just go 'anything can happen,'" he began. "But when you rewrite stuff, you're dealing with a lot of logistics and 'well, look we might not be able to shoot that, or this needs to be in this location, is there any way this can change?'
© Getty"And frankly, it's too long. So really what we have been doing the last few weeks really is just trying to make it as economical as possible. And we finished it yesterday."
Recalling the moment he and Ruth realised they'd never pen another episode for the show, James said: "We've finished writing, we will never write anything that Pam [Alison Steadman's character] says again…We will never come up with an interesting thing that Bryn [Rob Brydon's character] has done.
© BBC"And we just looked at each other and we were just like, 'Ah, isn't that amazing?' To even have the luxury of deciding to end it and to be in a position where people still care. It's inconceivable to us – all of it. I just feel very emotional by all of it; everything."
Back in May, James and Ruth confirmed that Gavin and Stacey would return with a final Christmas special airing in December 2024. Announcing the news on Instagram, the BBC shared a photo of the writing duo.
The caption read: "We'll have: A chicken bhuna, lamb bhuna, prawn bhuna, mushroom rice, bag of chips, keema naan, nine poppadoms and the last ever episode of Gavin and Stacey!!! Coming this Christmas Day on BBC One and iPlayer."
The news may not come as a huge surprise to fans as it was reported back in February that a Christmas special was in the works, with filming set to commence this summer. According to Deadline, the majority of the cast are expected to return for the special, including Mathew Horne, Joanna Page, Rob Brydon, Alison Steadman, Larry Lamb and Julia Davis.
For Ruth, the actress was disappointed when news of a Christmas special dropped earlier than planned. "I was very sad that it got leaked. James and I have been writing since September, which is always the case with us," she said on Rob Brydon's Wondery podcast Brydon &.
"We write it and then we go to the BBC and say do you want it because if we didn't feel it was going to be good enough, no one else would know and nobody would be any the wiser.
"So, when we felt it was in good enough shape, that's when we contacted the BBC. There was all this stuff about Netflix and a bidding war… absolute rubbish, you just go, where did this come from? And so, once we agreed with the BBC we were going to do it, and obviously they were very happy about it because it's finishing a story and this will be the finale."
"But then there's a whole process and you can't announce it because you've got to make sure the cast are all available, that the deals are done and the budget is in place… all of these things. Then this journalist went and leaked it."
Currently, details surrounding the Christmas special are top secret, but we're hoping the finale will answer our number one question – did Smithy say yes to Nessa's proposal?
