Ruth Jones breaks silence on 'glaring continuity error' in Gavin and Stacey special

Gavin and Stacey's co-creator and star Ruth Jones has spotted a 'glaring continuity error' in the hit sitcom's Christmas special, which saw Nessa propose to Smithy

Ruth Jones, the brains behind Gavin and Stacey, has finally spoken out on a "glaring continuity error" she discovered in the show's 2019 Christmas special. The festive episode, which left viewers hanging with Nessa's (played by Ruth herself) proposal to Smithy (James Corden), was a massive hit, drawing in 18.49 million people – making it the most-watched non-sporting event in a decade, and the top comedy in 17 years.

Fast forward to yesterday (December 25), and the much-anticipated final episode of the BBC series became the most-watched show on Christmas Day. However, Ruth recently revealed that she noticed a mistake in one of the show's classic jokes while tuning in five years after the dramatic 2019 festive special first aired.

In the build up to this year's episode, Ruth confessed on Magic Radio: "I watched the 2019 Christmas special the other night and I noticed a glaring continuity error. You know Pam leaves the Christmas puddings behind and forgets to take them because they have been otherwise occupied and they are mortified?

"And Mick, being the calming force of the family, the voice of reason, says 'it's okay, we can go to a shop, there'll be one open'. So they go to get them on the way to the pub. Then Bryn turns up and he's got the Morrisons bag with the Christmas puddings in, and I think there were nine of them for dinner."

"Then Jason arrives and he's stopped at the shop and he's picked up Christmas puddings as well. So the next morning, when they haven't got the Christmas puddings, one of them, and I can't remember who it is, says 'have we left nine Christmas puddings in the pub?' There's 18, there's double."

Gavin and Stacey's co-creator James Corden, however, wasn't convinced by this error, pointing out that it isn't specified how many Christmas puddings either character had bought. He told Ruth: "Does Bryn say that they have bought nine? No.

"Nobody says how many they've bought, and also, you don't have a Christmas pudding each on Christmas Day. What I thought that happened is they'd bought four or five and then Jason turned up and bought four."

Ruth argued that the puddings were smaller "individual" desserts instead of a larger one. However, James pointed out that the bag appeared too heavy to contain the smaller puddings.

This year's festive episode of Gavin and Stacey drew in an overnight audience of 12.3 million people, according to BBC reports. It made the programme the most-watched non-sporting event of 2024. The second-most viewed programme on BBC One was Wallace and Gromit with 9.38 million.

The total audience for the sitcom's finale is, however, expected to increase, following the trend from 2019 when BBC iPlayer views were included in the count later on.