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Gavin And Stacey is a British sitcom that has really grown in popularity in recent years, largely due to word of mouth. It used to be tucked away on BBC3 but now it’s just had a primetime billing on BBC1 on Christmas Eve. So why is it now so popular?

Well I personally discovered this series quite late and it was only having heard lots of people praise it highly that I decided to give it a chance. I watched a random episode and loved it almost immediately. In fact I made a point of watching the whole series right from the start, and I’m now a huge fan of the show.

What I like about Gavin And Stacey is the fact that it’s very much a modern day sitcom for the 21st century. There are no studio sets and therefore no studio audience with laughter tracks telling you when to laugh. All of the scenes seem to be filmed on location which makes the show a lot more realistic than a lot of the more traditional sitcoms.

The show itself is wonderfully written by James Corden and Ruth Jones as they managed to write some quite dramatic scenes whilst interspersing it with fantastic moments of comedy as well. The whole story revolves around Gavin and Stacey who come together in the first series despite Gavin living in Essex, England, and Stacey living in South Wales.

It’s this union that holds the show together because we then get to see Gavin and Stacey’s family and friends coming together and as a result we get some fantastic scenes as the two clans unite and conflict with each other.

Although the show is called Gavin And Stacey, for me it’s the supporting characters that really make the show a success. The best friends of the young couple, Smithy and Nessa, have an ongoing and somewhat awkward on-off relationship whilst Bryn, who is Stacey’s guardian played by Rob Brydon, seems to steal every scene he is in with his brilliant comedy timing and delivery.

The storylines are quite slow-paced but it’s very much like the Royle Family in that it’s the strong characters and the dialogue between these characters that make the show such a success. You can relate to every single character and there are plenty of comedy moments shared between all of them.

So overall I personally think it’s no surprise at all that Gavin And Stacey has taken off the way it has. It’s received several BAFTA’s and British Comedy Awards, and at a time when we’ve had a lot of mediocre sitcoms being made, this one is a breath of fresh air.