CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews the Gavin and Stacey finale

Gavin And Stacey: The Finale: BBC One

Rating:

What a perfect Christmas present – Smithy tearfully proposing to Nessa, in an echo of the scene that broke the nation’s hearts five years ago.

And this time, we got the answer we’ve all been waiting to hear. The feature-length Gavin & Stacey finale ended in wedding bells... or at least, karaoke down the pub.

Our greatest sitcoms can be judged by the brilliance of their Christmas highlights. Dawn kissing Tim at The Office party. Geraldine eating four Christmas dinners in The Vicar Of Dibley. Del Boy and Rodders jogging out of the London fog, dressed as Batman and Robin.

The climax of the romcom created 17 years ago by James Corden and Ruth Jones delivered a moment to equal any of them. After crashing a coach through a hedge, in their desperate rush to stop Nessa from leaving the country in a sulk, Smithy’s mates managed to reunite him with the love of his life.

Nessa was all kitted out in a stevedore’s overalls and on the point of boarding a merchant ship to the Uruguayan port of Carrasco. Smithy caught up with her at the water’s edge in Southampton: ‘Five years ago on Christmas Day you asked me a question and I didn’t answer you,’ he pleaded. ‘Ask me again!’

‘No,’ retorted Nessa. ‘I only ever ask once. You had your chance.’

For a tragic few seconds, it seemed as though all his hopes and ours were going to be dashed. But somehow, Smithy – a man who speaks in schoolboy catchphrases, and whose own emotions are a complete mystery to him – managed to find the words to woo her.

‘I know it’s a bit messy and not perfect,’ he stuttered. ‘But I love you, I always have. I mean, not always, but most of the time. Will you marry me?’

Real love, the messy kind, has been the bedrock of this show and the reason for its colossal popularity. As Jones explained, at a debut screening for the production crew last week: ‘Throughout all of the episodes is this sense of love... love between friends, love between family members, conventional boy meets girl love stories and unconventional relationships. All the characters in the show really do love each other.’

Choking up, she added: ‘I’m gonna cry now.’ It’s that palpable affection for each other that makes us take the Shipmans and their friends and family to our own hearts.

Every scene shows us the depth of their relationships below the surface friction.

At the core of it are Mick and Pam (Larry Lamb and Alison Steadman). They’re not the title characters but they hold it all together.

At the screening, Larry talked fervently about what the role means to him: ‘Mick is absolutely determined to make it as good as it can be, no matter the trials and tribulations of Her Royal Highness – he is the consort, he looks after her, he basically runs the family... but she wears the trousers.’

It was an insightful summary of what makes their marriage tick, and one that millions of viewers will recognise from their own lives.

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Mick is retired these days, devoting his spare time to golf and practising his putts in the living room, much to Pam’s irritation. He had the best speech of the show, telling Smithy at his stag do how he’d always be a part of their family.

This was a pledge that changed the course of the story because at that point, Smithy was blundering into marriage with the appalling Sonia (Laura Aikman). Everyone could see what a disaster that was going to be, and no one knew how to say it.

So intense was the secrecy about Aikman’s return to the show that she didn’t stay in the same hotel as the rest of the cast during filming, for fear the news might leak.

The subterfuge worked. For the first seven minutes of the show, we had no idea she was back to make Smithy’s life a misery.

When the penny dropped, as she checked off items on her John Lewis wedding list (‘Someone’s already bought us the handheld Dyson!’), a million viewers dropped their sherry glasses in shock.

Other surprises came thick and fast. Mum-of-two Stacey (Joanna Page) was eager to try out some roleplay and inject spice back into her marriage with Gavin (Mathew Horne). Before she could get started, the duo stumbled on divorcee Dawn and her ex Pete (Julia Davis and Adrian Scarborough) rekindling their love with vigour.

Dawn and Pete threatened to steal the show early on with the loudest, most virulent row seen on Christmas Day TV since Dirty Den served Angie with divorce papers in the 1986 EastEnders special.

Noisy and vicious though they were (‘The only thing I begrudge you is every single second I spent with you!’), the rest of the cast easily matched them for boozy, mouthy, outrageous misbehaviour.

At the high point of a pre-stag-party drinks do, they all hurled themselves on to the sofa in a pile-on – impromptu and not scripted, apparently.

Anna Maxwell Martin had a cameo as a bewildered celebrant at Smithy’s abortive wedding to Sonia, and 17-year-old star of The Voice, Oscar Hartland, returned to play Neil the Baby.

As well as the unexpected twists, a bundle of loose ends were tied up.

Stacey’s mum Gwen (Melanie Walters) finally got herself a fella, even if he was one of Nessa’s many former fiances, Dave Coaches (Steffan Rhodri).

Nessa admitted herself grudgingly impressed: ‘I knows what you’re packin’ and it’s exceptional,’ she told him.

Uncle Bryn (Rob Brydon) was less impressed. He’s always been on the fringes of the comedy, as the awkward unmarried man desperate to join the fun but unsure how to fit in – and hampered, in this hard-drinking sitcom, by his tendency to fall asleep after two Babychams.

Bryn and Dave made an unlikely couple of action heroes, charging to Smithy’s rescue at the end. The whole country was cheering them all the way.

But that’s the lot for Gavin & Stacey now. The ending was perfect and it’s over. As Larry Lamb said: ‘The whole thing has been a wonderful gift.’