Ruth Jones and James Corden considered turning Gavin and Stacey finale into a film
Gavin and Stacey creators Ruth Jones and James Corden were both tempted to bring the final episode of the sitcom to the big screen.
Ruth Jones has revealed that she and James Corden considered making the Gavin and Stacey finale into a film.
The much-loved BBC sitcom came to an end with a special episode on Christmas Day last year but Ruth and James - who wrote the show and played the characters of Nessa and Smithy respectively - did contemplate releasing the conclusion on the big screen.
Ruth, 59, said at an event at the London Palladium to mark the release of the book When Gavin Met Stacey: "With the second special - the finale - we did consider making that as a movie because we wanted to do something different from what we'd done before.
"But then when we read it, we went, no, it really belongs in people's living rooms on Christmas night, when everyone's eaten too much turkey and Chocolate Orange and they're sat with friends and family."
James added: "Lots of people kept saying, 'You could make so much money. The Inbetweeners movie did this much money...'
"But we couldn't shake that these people belong in the corner of your living room."
Meanwhile, the duo confessed that they had planned for Gavin Shipman (Mathew Horne) to cheat on wife Stacey (Joanna Page) in the 2019 Christmas special, although the plot was scrapped because it didn't feel "true" to the programme.
James, 47, said: "We had sort of a weird idea for the 2019 special, didn't we?"
Ruth responded: "Oh, about Gavin having an affair."
Corden said: "Yeah, or that he wasn't having an affair but there was someone at his work who he liked."
Jones added: "It just felt like it wasn't true to the show."
Meanwhile, James explained that the whole cast were meant to be involved in a Comic Relief special in 2009 - which ultimately saw his alter ego Smithy lambasting the England football team for their poor performance.
He recalled: "We had this idea that the whole cast were going to go to watch Comic Relief in the studio.
"Like, Mick had got some tickets because someone at work had spent the week in a bathful of beans and he can’t go, and do the Barry lot want to go?
"They got a minibus and it was going to be all this stuff like Gwen ended up on a cookery programme showing Jamie Oliver how to make an omelette.
"Gavin and Stacey got lost and ended up in the Blue Peter garden and decided to have sex.
"Bryn ended up on one of the phone-in Loose Women-type shows giving people advice on what to do.
"And Nessa keeps bumping into people that she’s slept with. She’d turn a corner and go, ‘Oh God, not another one,’ and it would be Dermot O’Leary going, 'You never called me back!’"
Corden added: "But when we got into it, people’s dates were impossible. Ruth was filming, Alison [Steadman] was filming away, Mat was doing a play and there was no way to do it.
"I was like, I still think this England team thing could be quite funny."
