All behind-the-scenes details you didn’t know from Gavin and Stacey’s finale episode
Warning: This article contains spoilers
The Gavin and Stacey finale, and thankfully, it was just as good as we had all hoped. But, there are some things that went down behind-the-scenes that you probably don’t know about and it makes it even better.
Long live Smithy and Nessa!
After 17 years, we now have the closure that they’re out there living out their days together after they got hitched and ditched Sonia.
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It all began when Smithy dropped to one knee and returned the favour of the 2019 Christmas Special, except, his proposal was something like a dream.
He told the Barry native: “Five years ago on Christmas Day, you asked me a question and I didn’t answer you.
“And I thought about it every day. And I’m sorry I left you hanging.
“I know it’s been messy and not perfect. But that’s because we’re messy and not perfect. But I love you, Nessa. I always have. Will you marry me?”
The whole episode was perfect, from start to finish and it was made even better by the behind-the-scenes details that have only just been revealed in a Q and A, as per tv critic and broadcaster, Scott Bryan.
Take a peek.
Laura Aikman went to great lengths to hide her reprisal of Sonia
Ugh, Sonia.
Her comeback no doubt made a lot of people seethe with anger when it turned out that she was the bride-to-be and not Nessa right at the start of the episode.
However, Aikman really did try to keep it all a secret at any cost and ended up staying in a separate hotel and refusing to breathe a word of her role, even to her family so that it would stay a surprise for last night.
James Corden came up with Sonia’s return to trick people
Corden, who wrote the episode alongside Ruth Jones (Nessa) shared that he was in America at the time and he had ‘this idea at three o’clock in the morning’.
He shared: "I called Ruth and said, ‘I wonder if we could trick everybody into thinking for the first six or seven minutes that they’re just going to watch a wedding between Nessa and Smithy?’.
“Because after the 2019 special, all people would say to us was, ‘What does he say?’. They would never say, ‘Who did he choose?’. I just wanted it to feel satisfying.
“At the premiere, it was lovely to hear a collective gasp when she was revealed.”
Gwen’s love affair with Dave Coaches
Poor Gwen had never had a love interest since Stacey and Jason’s father died, so fans were made up to see that she finally found love.
However, nobody expected it to be Nessa’s ex.
Melanie Walters, who plays Gwen, said: “I had a coffee with Chris, our amazing director. And she said, ‘I will tell you something’. She said, ‘There’ll be a moment that I think you might shriek a little’.
“And true enough, I did when I read the script and it was Dave Coaches.
“Part of me sort of hoped Gwen will have a little love in her life, but not in a million years would it be Dave Coaches. I thought it would be one of Doris’ cast-offs.”
Joanna Page (Stacey) shared that she screamed when she read the script’s reveal.
Stacey and Gavin change identities
When Stacey and Gavin decided to spice up their sex life, they chose to change their names to Stephanie and Ross.
Well, Stacey did most of the work on the fantasy.
While it might have shocked everyone, it’s not exactly out of character as Page said: “Stacey was what she was like in the first series. She was a little bit dirty, and it was fun to play.
“I was so excited when I read the script — just the scene where I’m spinning Mathew Horne (Gavin) around, bending him over and slapping him on the backside.
“We’ve been playing husband and wife now for so long that it just felt natural.”
The fishing trip
It has been years of waiting to finally be told the answer to what went on between Bryn and Jason on a fishing trip, and the finale left us all hanging.
A plot twist was handed to us when it turned out that Dave Coaches knew all along what went down as Bryn told him, and just as he was getting into the start of the story, it all went wrong thanks to a burn omelette.
He said in the scene: “From what I was told, it was cold. The tent was up and the sun was down. The fire was blazing.
“And the soup was bubbling in the billy can . . . ”
Devastating.
Robert Wilfort who plays Jason said: “I’d like to say now and forever, the joke has always been you don’t find out what happens on the fishing trip.
“I’m sorry everybody, but that has always been the joke and it always will be because it’s funny.
“It’s funnier that way.
“And I was so pleased that we didn’t reveal it . . . because we’ve never known what it is.”
Smithy ditched Sonia and extra’s decided to improvise
Oh,oh, OH! What a scene.
When Smithy was told by Gavin that nobody wanted him to marry Sonia, it was a fantastic moment.
Particularly because it led to a massively romantic proposal.
At the premiere, Jones said: “It was a lovely moment when everybody cheered when Smithy left the wedding. It was just so rewarding to hear that!”
Larry Lamb (Mick Shipman) added: “I’ll never forget it. There must have been 40, 50 extras there, who all sort of knew the story because they’re all fans.
“And the looks on their faces — the shock — it was just absolutely brilliant.”
Well, two of those fans decided to stand up in protest of Smithy’s nuptials after they were seated on Sonia’s side.
Corden revealed: “Essentially, we didn’t really tell anybody what to do other than our cast, who would all stand up at their various points.
“When Anna said, ‘Please stand’, there’s two ladies at the back on Stacey’s side who stood up! We didn’t tell them to.
“They were just real fans of the show who were so in it, that they just stood up and were like, ‘I just thought he shouldn’t be marrying her!’.”
The proposal of a century
When Smithy finally popped the question, originally it was meant to be at an airport, however the show couldn’t get permission to shoot at Cardiff’s airport.
That’s when Corden noted: “Production designer Dave Ferris had been saying every day, ‘I don’t think we’ll ever be able to make an airport secure enough, should it not be the ships?’.
“Then we remembered that there was a reference to Nessa working on the ships years ago, and so that immediately became that.”
Due to it being such a hush hush scene, they ended up hiring a load of security as not to allow paparazzi in on what was going to happen at the end of the episode.
Jones said: “We were always on the lookout for cameras, because that was like the most important thing that didn’t get out — the image of James down on one knee in front of me.”
The final scene was rearranged to say a proper farewell
Apparently, the last day of filming was supposed to end with Smithy in a car, but to really end it on a proper goodbye for the cast and crew, they swapped the filming schedule around so that the last scene shot was the final scene of the episode.
According to Bryan, the sound department played the theme tune of the series which brought everyone to tears.
Neil the baby sang at the wedding
Wondered why Neil the baby (Oscar Hartland) took out his guitar and sang for his dad and for Sonia before their vows?
According to Bryan, he was on The Voice, and as a nod to that, he was set up to use his talent for the show.
However, Jones was on set that day and cried as she watched his performance.
Topics: Gavin And Stacey, TV, BBC, James Corden
Britt Jones