Gavin and Stacey to return this year with Christmas Special

BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey will be returning for another Christmas Special this year.

According to Deadline, the comedy hit - starring James Corden, Ruth Jones, Joanna Page and Mathew Horne - will be returning with a new episode that will be filmed over the course of the summer and will air at Christmas, five years after the last instalment.

BBC

Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow, Jones’ Tidy Productions and Fulwell 73 which is co-owned by Corden, are said to be backing the upcoming Gavin & Stacey special.

Fans of the show might recall that the last episode, filmed back in 2019, saw Nessa (Jones) getting down on one knee and asking Smithy (Corden) to marry her.

Much to producers' delight, the previous one-off special become the most-watched TV show in a decade, raking in a surplus of 18 million viewers.

And having ended on a nail-biting cliffhanger, fans of the show - which first aired all the way back in 2007 - were desperately hoping for a follow-up series, revealing whether Smithy and Nessa's on-off romance ever reached its happy ending.

And on top of that, viewer STILL don't know what went down between Uncle Bryn and his nephew Jason on that notorious fishing trip.

BBC

Bryn became so close to finally addressing the speculation during the last special - leaving viewers on the edge of their seats - before the family's kids came charging in demanding to open their selection boxes.

Will we EVER find out? Only time will tell...

At the time of the last instalment taking to our screens, co-writer Jones said there was room for more episodes but it was just 'so complicated for me and James to get together to write'.

And in an interview last year, fans' hopes were further dashed when actress Sheridan Smith - who played Smithy's sister Rudi on the rib-tickling hit - insisted that producers had left the show in a good place, after 'so many shows overdo it'.

"I have not a clue if they're going to do any more or not, I really don't know," she admitted at the time.

BBC

"I think what they've done is genius, they've left it on a high haven't they, so many shows overdo it, because we all want more, we all want more Gavin and Stacey."

But following Corden's resignation from his hit US talk-show Late Late Show after eight years, speculation only heightened.

Deadline also reported that the 'majority of the main cast' - which also stars Rob Brydon, Alison Steadman, Larry Lamb and Julia Davis - are set to return to the show.

BBC declined to comment when approached by LADbible Group... make of that what you will.