- Gavin & Stacey creators are reportedly making a new series
- The duo will executive produce and star as the lead characters
- The Choir is set to to be released on Apple TV+
If you’ve missed Gavin & Stacey since its explosive Christmas special last year, there’s good news: creators James Corden and Ruth Jones have a new show, The Choir, that’s set to head to Apple TV+.
The news comes courtesy of Deadline, which revealed the pair will be playing the lead characters in the new series, alongside being its executive producers. Jones and Corden’s characters are brother and sister Ben and Lisa, who “haven’t seen each other for several years. Ben has been living abroad, while Lisa has carried on in their small English town where nothing ever happens.
“But when events take a sorry turn, Ben is forced to return to a life he never wanted, a town he never liked and a family from which he’s estranged.”
In a nutshell, it sounds like Gavin & Stacey gone wrong, with characters intent on running away from their home lives rather than continuously being homesick. It’s a smart way to capitalize on what we loved so much about the Essex-Barry Island banter while giving us something new, although no production details or release date have been confirmed yet.
But that’s not the reason why I think The Choir could be the best TV show Apple TV+ has ever had.
Apple TV+’s The Choir gives us what Gavin & Stacey can’t, more content from the best writing duo around
Even though The Choir is only a follow-up to Gavin & Stacey in the sense that it’s reuniting the creative team behind it, that’s all we need. As soon as Smithy (Corden) and Nessa (Jones) got married, the show couldn’t be revived ever again, and after two decades, I don’t think it should have been anyway.
We can never relive the 2009 glory days of bouncing between England and Wales… they’re sacred and always at our fingertips thanks to the best streaming services around. However, that doesn’t mean we should be starved of new content from one of the greatest writing duos around.
Over the years, I’ve heard them both talk about how difficult the long process of creating an idea and birthing a script is (if you watch the behind-the-scenes documentary of making the Gavin & Stacey finale on BBC iPlayer, you’ll see what I mean), but perseverance pays off.
Even though the original run only consisted of three six-episode seasons, Gavin & Stacey has been a timeless cultural moment for almost two decades since. It failed to be replicated in the US, and that only speaks to Corden and Jones’ craft as a creative team.
Expecting Gavin & Stacey 2.0 from The Choir isn’t going to do anybody any favors, and nor should we have any pre-conceived ideas. Instead, we can trust in these two to deliver exceptionally well-rounded television, fully fleshed-out characters, a deft balance between big laughs and tender drama as well as world building we’ll want to continuously come back to.
If anything, Apple TV+ subscribers in the US should be thanking their lucky stars that they have direct access to this pocket of genius (or if not, I’d get going with an Apple TV+ free trial ASAP). Throw in a few incredibly one-liner quotes, and we genuinely couldn’t ask for more.
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