GAVIN and Stacey star Joanna Page has opened up about her emotional state while she and her co-stars filmed the last ever instalment of the hit BBC sitcom. 

Speaking to EastEnders’ star Natalie Cassidy on their podcast Off the Telly, Joanna, 47, admitted that returning to Barry one last time for the Christmas Special was so moving that she just couldn’t stop crying.

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The actor said playing her character Stacey Shipman and returning to her and Gavin’s (Mathew Horne) iconic TV homes for the last time brought back so many memories, as it was like returning home from college for holidays.

“The last ever time on Trinity Street, I was crying,” Joanna revealed, admitting the emotion of filming the final scenes for the Christmas Special completely overwhelmed her. 

“And the last ever, ever time in Stacey’s house that she grew up in. In Stacey’s house, in Gwen’s house the last ever, ever time,” she added. 

Joanna explained that she was hit with a wave of emotion when she entered the West family home for the final time as she pictured all the scenes that had ever been filmed in that living room.

“It was amazing. It brings back so many memories,” she said.

“You know when you go off to drama school or university and you come home for Christmas back to your house and you come back and you look around and it’s like ‘Oh, I’m home again.’

“You know, when it’s painful because it’s got so many memories and it’s so raw. I was thinking about when Stacey was going ‘foot together, next together, foot together,’ you’re trying to teach Nessa how to go down the aisle.

“And then when Stacey came in trying on different black business jackets before her work meeting.

“Oh my God, and the first time I sat down at the table to eat an omelette,” she recalled of the many iconic Gavin and Stacey scenes from over the years. 

Joanna admitted that she was in floods of tears by the end of the day. 

Once filming ended, the cast stepped back out onto Trinity Street one final time, where they were met by crowds of fans who had been out supporting them all day. 

“And as I was walking up, oh my God, tears were just streaming, falling down the outside of my eyes, just falling down, I had no control over it.

“And I just remember looking at them, the sun was setting, and then we said goodbye and then I remember turning around to walk back to the car and looking back and just thinking ‘wow, I’ll never experience this again, all of this love from everyone, and all of this support, and this amazing experience, and the love I feel for all of the cast, I’ll never, ever have this again.’

“And I just got in the car and was just crying.

Gavin and Stacey’s Best Moments

With the news that the show is set to make an exciting return to screens, let’s take a look at some of the comedy programme’s biggest and best moments…

• Smithy and Rudi’s American Boy rap – No one will ever forget when James Corden and Sheridan Smith rapped perfectly word for word the Kanye West and Estelle hit American Boy as they walked across the car park on the phone to Gavin.
• Pam’s Vegetarian faux pas – Despite loving a cheesburger, Pam found herself caught up in a web of unexpected lies when she claimed to be Vegetarian. She is forced to keep up the secret throughout the entire show and uses hubby Mick to help her scoff meat. She is later rumbled when Stacey catches her in the act as she scoffs ham in the kitchen. Stacey says to her: “Is that ham, Pam!?… “I’ve seen you, Pam. A scotch egg here, a bit of bacon there, putting those regular sausages into the Linda McCartney box”.
• THAT fishing trip – It remains one of the biggest mysteries in Gavin and Stacey history as to just exactly what did happen on the ill-fated fishing trip. Bryn appears to be hiding a secret as to an occurance between him and his nephew Jason which has left relations fractures. Ness’ on-off boyfriend, Dave, is the only other person to know the whole truth. Bryn did appear to allude to him and Jason lying together naked to keep warm as he said to Dave: “We’re going to have this out, once and for all, man to man, you may know what happened, David, but you don’t know why it happened! It was freezing cold, it was! And when you are that cold…”
• Islands in the Stream – No one can ever forget the classic Karaoke performance of Islands in the Stream. Nessa and Bryn performed the track in front of all their nearest and dearest. It saw the whole pub burst into some line-dancing as they enjoyed a boozy night out.
• The Xmas special proposal – In 2019, fans were left overjoyed when the show made a comeback but it ended on the ultimate cliffhanger. Nessa asked Smithy if she would marry him as she finally laid bare her feelings for him. Fans were gutted as the show then cut straight to the credits as they never found out just how Smithy answered. Will all be revealed in the brand new episode?

“I think I spent most of my flipping time crying,” Joanna admitted. “We are all like a big family and it just does for you. You just feel it so, just, raw.”

But, in between all the emotional moments on set, the Gavin and Stacey cast managed to do what they do best – have a laugh. 

“And in amongst all of that, you’ve just got flashes of utter hysteria where I’m just laughing at everybody because they’re all just so funny.”

While speaking on her podcast, Joanna also revealed that each of the cast members were allowed to take a little souvenir. 

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She explained: “Throughout the day we were walking around and they said we could take a little memento type thing.

“And so I was thinking ‘Ok, what am I going to steal,’ and they said ‘you don’t need to steal, just tell us what it is that you want.’

“So I chose a little thing, then I ended up choosing two things, ‘I think I might take this little picture,’ and then there was a little ornament vase type thing which I said ‘I’d just like to take that as well.’ Just two little things to remind me.”

The upcoming Gavin and Stacey special will hit screens on Christmas Day. 

While addressing the cast, crew, and fans who were gathered in Barry for the final day of filming, co-writer and star Ruth Jones promised that viewers “won’t be disappointed” by the sitcom’s final ever instalment. 

Over the past several weeks, the cast and crew have been spotted filming several exciting scenes including what looks to be a wedding – possibly Smithy and Nessa’s following on from the cliffhanger proposal in 2019 – and Nessa’s hen do. 

For the finale, fans expect to see the main cast back together. This includes Joanna, Ruth alongside James Corden, Mathew Horne, Larry Lamb, Alison Steadman, Melanie Walters, Rob Brydon, Julia Davis and Adrian Scarborough.

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Paul Merson has made an admission about his participation on Strictly Come Dancing.

Days after the former Arsenal and England footballer performed an American Smooth to Fat Les song “Vindaloo”, Merson, who ended near the bottom of the leaderboard, said he was finding his time on the BBC show “really hard”.

However, he said that this was not due to the technicalities required to dance – but because of the showbiz nature of the series.

Appearing on Strictly companion show It Takes Two on Tuesday (24 September), Merson, who is partnered with Karen Hauer, was asked if he’s enjoying his experience, and he drew laughter from host Fleur East as he replied with an uncertain: “Yeah?”

Merson, 56, added: “You know what? I don’t know – that’s the bit I find really hard, the showbizzy bit. I’m usually a footballer – you put your boot on, you get the job done.” He said that he found it hard being interviewed by Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman after the dance with his fellow contestants singing “Vindaloo” around him as it made him feel “like a little shy boy”.

He also revealed that he only signed up to appear on the show as his mum is such a big fan.

”My mum loves it, she absolutely loves it,” he said. “If it wasn’t for my dad I wouldn’t have been a footballer.”

Merson finished the first week of Strictly’s live dances in joint 14th place, alongside Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystal, with 17 points. The only couple trailing them were Toyah Willcox and Neil Jones with a score of 12.

During the episode, viewers saw Merson look surprised when “Vindaloo” was revealed during the pairing show the previous week, with the retired sportsman asking: “What dance is it again?”

Making light of the situation, his partner Hauer responded: “It’s an American Smooth but it might be bumpier than that.”

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A source told the Mail Online that the former footballer’s reaction had to be “re-recorded” due to his negative response.

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“You can’t blame him for thinking he is being set up to the joke act,” they said. “But also the connotations of it [the song] are also not exactly positive either.”

The Independent has contacted the BBC for comment.

Strictly judge Anton Du Beke praised Hauer for her “genius choreography” that made the most of the unusual song and dance pairing on Saturday night.

Meanwhile, Craig Revel Horwood told Merson he was “pigeon-toed and flat footed” and Motsi Mabuse said she “couldn’t recognise” the dance as an American Smooth.

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I’m a little worried about Noel Fielding. During his first few years on Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, he enjoyed a virtual monopoly on smut and pushing at the boundaries of obscene but broadcastable innuendo. But that all changed when breakfast telly favourite Alison Hammond turned up as a co-host last year, replacing the relatively understated Matt Lucas. Now, poor old Noel has some stiff, if you’ll pardon the expression, competition. The boy’s been relegated to wandering around the Bake Off tent, engaging in weak banter while Hammond steals the show. At one point in the first episode of the 2024 series, she gives the goth such a smacker of a kiss, for no good reason, that she inflicts a mild flesh wound.

Hammond’s real shocker, you might even say showstopper, comes courtesy of a pet hen owned by one of the contestants, Georgie, a children’s nurse who lives on a farm in Carmarthenshire. You see, for unexplained reasons, Georgie has named her “favourite chicken” Fanny. Now, as talented a cook as Georgie is, I can’t help wondering if the discovery of Fanny made her a certainty to enter the GBBO tent. All too predictably come the references to a “demented and deformed Fanny”, a Fanny “with a slightly odd shape” and various other pudenda addenda. It climaxes when Georgie recreates Fanny in sponge loaf cake form, complete with lemon curd filling, and 300 individual fondant feathers. As Paul Hollywood and Noel are concentrating on sampling the cake, Hammond bellows at them in broad Brummie: “How does Fanny taste, guys?”

The presenter thus proves herself to be not only a worthy successor to Lucas, but to Barry Humphries and Kenneth Williams as well. It is possible, I put it no higher, that Channel 4 is trying to outrage middle England and make GBBO an unlikely champion in the Ofcom complaints league table – the fight for ratings can create some desperate publicity stunts. I feel almost nostalgic about the time when Mel and Sue would scold the bakers for their soggy bottoms.

This brings us to the rest of the fruit-cakery. “Overbaked” is a phrase that comes up a lot and I have to question whether the same dry and flaky quality applies to the show itself. The generally high standard of baking deprives us of some of the more emotional/hilarious moments that we have witnessed in previous series. For example, the wannabe baking megastars are asked to bake a battenberg without a recipe. They all use their common sense to produce fairly recognisable examples of the marzipan-covered treat (Prue Leith’s favourite), which means that there are no entertainingly inedible Frankensteinish concoctions, just a crop of delicious pink and yellow mini cakes.

We can see that Hazel (despite some moments of brilliance) and Christiaan (misguidedly obsessed with umami cake-making) are probably doomed, and Georgie and Sumaya are possible series champions, but they’re all so sweet and gifted that pretty much any of them would be worthy winners. The contestants are so good that it also means there’s less drama. Unlike in previous shows, no one sabotages a rival’s trifle, no food mixer explodes, and not a single scone, bun or biscuit is dropped on the floor. Instead, the “amateur” bakers are effortlessly accomplished. The creativity is sometimes breathtaking – cakes fashioned into incredibly lifelike reproductions of a leather overnight bag, a vase of flowers, a shoe and even a pair of jeans. It’s John, who creates the latter, who most deservedly wins star baker.

Lovely people, too, but it is, in truth, a bit dull, a bit too wholemeal wholesome, and I’m not sure what they would have done without that chicken with a funny name to vary the pace a bit. I have a leaked GBBO story, though, to share with you. Next week: Fanny ends up in a pie.

‘The Great British Bake Off’ is on Channel 4