Gavin & Stacey is a slice of British life rarely seen on TV now… the show is a huge lesson for BBC chiefs

Share:
Gavin & Stacey is a slice of British life rarely seen on TV now… the show is a huge lesson for BBC chiefs
Author: Colin Robertson
Published: Jan, 03 2025 21:00

THERE was a revealing scene in the very moving Gavin & Stacey documentary on Wednesday night. Writers James Corden and Ruth Jones discussed the reply from a BBC commissioner when they pitched the show as a one-off comedy called It’s My Day. Then BBC Three boss Stuart Murphy said he loved it but had an issue: One episode wouldn’t work. He wanted six.

 [Success of Gavin & Stacey is a huge lesson for BBC executives]
Image Credit: The Sun [Success of Gavin & Stacey is a huge lesson for BBC executives]

He got them. And the rest, much to our absolute pleasure, is history. But thank God it was 20 years ago when this exchange took place. Had it happened today, the issues with their brilliant comedy creation would have been significantly different. Timid BBC bosses, brainwashed by the cult of wokeness, would have questions: Why is everyone on the show white?.

 [Timid BBC bosses are brainwashed by the cult of wokeness]
Image Credit: The Sun [Timid BBC bosses are brainwashed by the cult of wokeness]

Shouldn’t Dawn and Pete be Darren and Pete? Does Dave “Sugar T*ts” Coaches have to be such a misogynist?. Isn’t Bryn an unacceptable caricature of a Welshman?. Isn’t it a bit triggering to Harold Shipman’s victims to give Gavin’s family the same surname?.

 [I'm glad to see Ross Kemp is returning to EastEnders]
Image Credit: The Sun [I'm glad to see Ross Kemp is returning to EastEnders]

Isn’t the fishing trip story just homophobia?. Can we put Jason in a wheelchair? Can we make Nessa trans?. “Chinese Alan” is just racist, isn’t it?. And why is there no drag queen?. The list would doubtless go on, ticking other nonsensical boxes and mining micro-aggressions where none actually exist.

 [EastEnders has been crap since Grant and Phil regularly terrorised Albert Square]
Image Credit: The Sun [EastEnders has been crap since Grant and Phil regularly terrorised Albert Square]

That the finale sailed through all these woke worries and made it to our screens is a Christmas miracle (no doubt helped by the 18million who tuned in to its last outing in 2019). So credit to whoever waved it through. But I can only imagine how nervous some executives were at unleashing such an old-school comedy on to the fragile audience of 2024.

 [Trans people in Britain are free to use the toilets currently set aside for the disabled in Corley services on the M6]
Image Credit: The Sun [Trans people in Britain are free to use the toilets currently set aside for the disabled in Corley services on the M6]

Share:

More for You

Top Followed