Gavin & Stacey

When I found out Hollywood is thinking of doing a US version of Gavin & Stacey, I got a real sick feeling in my heart. Gavin & Stacey is so perfect as it is. It's sort of like saying, hey, let's remake the Queen for American audiences. Why?

Gavin & Stacey is a fantastic British comedy written by James Corden and Ruth Jones (they also play Gavin and Stacey's respective wacky best friends). There isn't a real story: a Welsh lass and an Essex lad fall in love and decide to get married. So, all you have left is the writing, which is brilliant, and the acting that delivers the brilliant lines, which is perfect. My favorite gag this season involved one of Nessa's many lovers who died trying to fake his own death. The whole bit is delivered and received with total seriousness — perfect comedy.

The scenes with Nessa (Ruth Jones) are always funny, but when they also involve the two mothers, Pam (Alison Steadman) and Gwen (Melanie Walters), it's Christmas dinner in a snow globe: shake and watch with wonder. You've got energy vampire Nessa, world-weary at twenty-something. Add Pam, the nervous little mouse who wants desperately to seem hip, the classic people-pleaser. Stir in Gwen, small-town mom who rather enjoys having a gay son — so handy when you go shopping (think the shopping part in Welsh — for some reason, it's much more funnier delivered in a Welsh accent). There's a running gag involving Pam that's getting more and more ridiculously funny: she, for some weird reason, tells Gwen she's a vegetarian, when she's actually a raging sausage-eater, and she's too embarrassed to tell Gwen otherwise so now whenever they eat together, she has to fake vegetarianism when she doesn't really even know what that involves beyond eating disgusting soy sausages. Man, Alison Steadman is really running with this.

The show's had two seasons. After the first season, I was really nervous that they were going to make a second season — sophomore slump and all*. Could the fun possibly continue after the honeymoon? Yes! Hooray James and Ruth!

Here's a quick glimpse.




*I mean look at what happened to the Sarah Silverman Show. The Silverman writers should have packed their bags after the first season and just added "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" as an epilogue.