Gavin & Stacey Friends". Corden claims to have been inspired by the story of his own real life best friend Gavin, who met his wife over the phone at work, and arranged to meet. They presented it to the BBC as a one-off play, but the BBC instead asked for a full series. The roles of Gavin and Stacey were cast through an auditioning process, but were almost immediately given to Mathew Horne and Joanna Page on the strength of their chemistry together. The roles of Nessa and Smithy were written by Corden and Jones for themselves. Some roles were written with certain
Paul Stacey has also worked with Lucio Battisti in La Sposa Occidentale (1990) and with Patricia Kaas on her album "Je Te Dis Vous" (1993), recorded at the Eel Pie Studios in Twickenham. Both Stacey brothers played on Tom Jones' "Praise and Blame tour in November 2010. In 2011, Stacey was musical director for the play "Backbeat" at the Duke of York's Theatre, London. In 2017, he co-produced/engineered Steven Wilson's album "To the Bone", also playing a guitar solo on track "Refuge". Stacey worked for Oasis in a number of different capacities between 1999 and 2008. Originally brought in to engineer "Standing