Gavin & Stacey

Ruth Jones and Richard E. Grant sign onto The Other Bennet Sister

A picture of a black and white clapperboard with 'The Other Bennet Sister' written in script. The board announces they have begun filming, and that the DOP is Luke Sheridan.

Elizabeth is the witty one, Jane is the pretty one, Lydia is the problem child, Kitty is hanging onto the latter’s coattails, and Mary is… somewhere in the background.

Well, that’s what Austen’s 1813 novel would have you believe, but Janice Hadlow’s 2020 spin-off novel shows a different side to Mary Bennet. With Mary now acting as the protagonist, her world is explored separately from all the Mr Darcy and Bingley drama, and out of the shadow of her socialite sisters, Elizabeth and Jane.

Rob Brydon to play awkward student landlord in new BBC sitcom Bill’s Included

Rob Brydon sits in front of a dark teal background, smiling into the camera, wearing a brown corduroy jacket

Bill Beam (Brydon) isn’t your ideal uni housemate: he’s more into dusting than clubbing. He’s also desperate to be part of the gang, though, just as long as that gang keeps the noise down after 11.00pm. Between laminated house rules and colour-coded cutlery, his lodgers aren’t best-pleased with their living arrangement, except the rent, which is too cheap to refuse. Maybe a midlife crisis isn’t too dissimilar from a student identity crisis. Could everyone gel as a gang after all?

BBC reveals further casting for Motherland spin-off Amandaland

Lucy Punch, Joanna Lumley and Philippa Dunne sit on a sofa, smiling to the camera. Lumley and Punch wear light-toned, expensive-looking clothing, whereas Dunne wears a denim jacket and dark multicoloured dress

Joining Lucy Punch (How to Build a Girl), who stars as the eponymous Amanda, will be Samuel Anderson (Gavin & Stacey) as Mal and Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) as Della. Peter Serafinowicz (The Gentlemen) will appear as Johannes, Ekow Quartey (Becoming Elizabeth) as JJ and Rochenda Sandall (Line of Duty) as Fi.

Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) will also appear as Amanda’s overbearing mother Felicity, and Philippa Dunne (Derry Girls) as Anne, as previously announced.

What occurred? A look back at Gavin & Stacey's best moments

Few 21st-century British sitcoms have won classic status, but Gavin & Stacey did so with a vengeance. James Corden and Ruth Jones, who’d met as actors on ITV’s Fat Friends, were new to writing when they began work on the show, yet their fully-realised, relatable characters, superbly cast, have given us what every creator of TV comedy desires – a well-written series that is a genuinely popular success.

In an era of streaming and niche audiences, Gavin & Stacey retains a rare cross-generational, mainstream appeal that is now vanishing fast.

Comfort Classic: Gavin & Stacey

When a new BBC Three comedy made its low-key debut in the spring of 2007, no one imagined that Gavin & Stacey would go on to become the comedic equivalent of a national treasure. 

Despite its two writers’ utter lack of experience as screenwriters – James Corden and Ruth Jones had met as actors on Kay Mellor’s slimming club drama for ITV, Fat Friends – it soon became clear that here was a startlingly original show blessed by a group of fully realised characters, a script crackling with wit and an unusually brilliant cast.