Why the middle-aged huns are the real stars of Gavin & Stacey
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The best bit about ‘Gavin & Stacey’? The central trio of chaotic older women. As the show bows out with one last festive hurrah, Katie Rosseinsky salutes the performers who’ve brought these characters to life. It’s a universal truth of TV that a show’s main characters are often the least interesting thing about it. Wouldn’t you much rather spend a night in the pub with one of the side characters who has half the screen time but double the impact? Never has this been truer than in Gavin & Stacey. Mathew Horne’s Gavin and Joanna Page’s Stacey are perfectly nice. In fact, their generic niceness is their defining characteristic, bar Gavin’s fondness for Fred Perry (despite the fact I’ve watched the sitcom approximately 15 times, this is practically the only trait of his that I can remember). And it’s their relationship, initially carried out long-distance between Billericay in Essex and Barry Island near Cardiff, that is the show’s most straightforward plot engine.
![[Alison Steadman is one of our best comic performers]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/09/29/12/Screenshot-2024-09-29-at-12.34.30.jpg)
Yet the title couple get none of the best lines, and as time goes on, it becomes clear that they mainly exist as an excuse for the oddballs in their respective families to be crammed into the same suburban sitting room. For some, it’s the show’s co-creators James Corden and Ruth Jones that are the heart of the comedy, in their roles as the protagonists’ best mates Smithy and Nessa, whose will-they, won’t-they romance has simmered throughout three seasons and, as of tonight, two festive specials. But, respectfully, those viewers are wrong. Because the show’s true stars are its trio of older women: Alison Steadman’s Pamela(r), Julia Davis’s Dawn and Melanie Walters’s Gwen.
![[As Dawn, Julia Davis brings a touch of dysfunctionality to the show]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/18/11/newFile.jpg)
