James Corden has revealed that he and Ruth Jones have finished writing the script for Gavin and Stacey’s final episode.
The actor and former talk show host, 45, announced in early May along with the show’s co-creator Jones, 57, that the beloved comedy series would make a comeback.
The show revolves around Gavin and Stacey, played by Mathew Horne and Joanna Page, as they pursue a long-distance relationship between Billericay, in Essex, and Barry, in Wales.
It aired between 2007 and 2010 and returned in 2019 for a festive episode that ended on a cliffhanger with Nessa, played by Jones, getting down on one knee to propose to Smithy, played by Corden.
Corden said the script had been finished “a while back” but was too long so needed a rewrite.
“Rewriting is really difficult. Writing is really fun, because you can just go ‘anything can happen’,” he told Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio breakfast show.
“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?’ 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.”
Corden told Evans he felt “very emotional” as he reflected on the show and his friendship with Jones.
He 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.
“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.”
The actor, who presented The Late Late Show from 2015 to 2023, is starring in a West End play, The Constituent, alongside the Motherland star Anna Maxwell Martin. Earlier this month Corden delayed the start of the play so he and the audience could watch England’s penalty shootout with Switzerland in the Euro 2024 quarter-final.