Fancast’s Fall TV Preview: Gavin & Stacey

By Julia Diddy
Fancast.com

Gavin & Stacey
Romantic Comedy
Premieres Tuesday, August 26 at 8:40 p.m.
BBC America

Stars: Mathew Horne(Robin Hood), Joanna Page (Love Actually), Ruth Jones (Little Britain), James Corden (Little Britain), Matt Lucas (Little Britain), Alison Steadman, Robert Brydon, Marc Wootton

What’s It All About: Having become acquainted over the phone from their respective workplaces, a long-distance love affair blossoms between Gavin (Horney) and Stacey (Page). Taking their romance to the next level by getting personal in person, the enamored must run a gauntlet populated by lunatics and eccentrics – their family and friends, that is - if the romance is to survive.

Quote: Not sure how funny it is? Here’s what the “big-boned” writers and stars Ruth Jones and James Corden had to say about the writing process:

RUTH: It’s very important that there’s a sofa in the room.

JAMES: Because I need to lie down.

RUTH: And the space to nap. Well, we both nap, don’t we?

JAMES: We nap a lot. We nap, and we eat.

RUTH: Yeah.

JAMES: We start grazing around 11:00.

RUTH: Yeah.

JAMES: And then we’ll eat solidly –

RUTH: We sit until we find out what we are going to have for lunch, first thing. We do about an hour, kind of talking to each other about what’s going on in our lives.

JAMES: Normally therapy for me.

RUTH: Yeah, and then –

JAMES: I use Ruth as a sort of good therapist for a while, and then we both go, “Well, we should probably write something.”

Preview: Watch this clip on BBCAmerica.com.

Why You Should Watch: Because the Brits do comedy so well, we Yanks routinely “borrow” their comedy vehicles, run them through a chop-shop, and take them for a joy ride along a boulevard riddled with plot holes and cultural blind-spots. Barring the not-infrequent wreck this causes, our smash-and-grab technique occasionally produces a well-oiled machine of its own (think (All in the Family), (Three’s Company), or (The Office) - all of which started out as Brit sitcoms first). Sure, you could just wait to catch Gavin and Stacey after one of our homegrown networks has tied it to a chair and worked it over with a big fat American backhand……….but the results aren’t always pretty.

Odds: (As predicted by Vegas Odds-Maker Johnny Avello, Executive Director of Race & Sports - Wynn Las Vegas)

It’ll Evaporate First This Season: 35 to 1

It’ll Live To See A Second Season: 14 to 1

It’ll Become A Mega-Hit: 20 to 1

Johnny’s Verdict: “Good premise.”