James Corden says Gavin & Stacey Xmas special was 'dead' before being saved by 'best scene ever'

23 December 2019, 11:37

The Gavin & Stacey writers revealed that they almost had their hopes of a reunion scuppered by writers' block.

James Corden has opened up about the difficulties he and Ruth Jones faced while writing the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special, revealing that writers block almost put a stop to the entire thing.

Opening up to The Sun ahead of the Christmas Special's launch on the 25th, he revealed that he and Ruth met in secret to work on the script at his home in LA.

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He added that he had taken a week off The Late Late Show to work on the special, but that they didn't think that what they wrote would be good enough.

James told The Sun: "In a 24-hour period the show was dead — then brought back to life.

“It was deeply depressing. It was the second time Ruth had flown out. That’s a long way to go. I was working on my days off, so that is essentially time you’re not with your children.

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He added: “There was a very real moment where we had written maybe 40 pages. We recorded it just to see how long it was and we both knew probably halfway through, but we soldiered on.

“And we both finished, and Ruth went, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘We haven’t got it. It just doesn’t feel like Gavin & Stacey’.

“We decided, ‘OK, well, thank goodness we didn’t tell anyone. Thank the Lord we didn’t. We’ve scratched this itch that we thought was there, and it isn’t, so no harm done. No one will ever know’.”

James then claimed that an idea 'landed in the room' and saved the show.

“It’s probably the quickest scene we’ve ever written. And I think it’s the best scene Gavin & Stacey has ever had," he added.

The Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special is on BBC One at 8:30PM.

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