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
Ruth Jones in "A Child's Christmases In Wales". In 2010 she starred in the BBC Four comedy "The Great Outdoors" alongside Mark Heap, and in December presented the first of four chat shows on BBC Two, "Ruth Jones' Christmas Cracker". In January 2011 she starred as Carry On actor Hattie Jacques in the BBC Four drama "Hattie", which tells the story of Jacques' affair with her young driver John Schofield while she was married to "Dad's Army" actor John Le Mesurier. In 2008, Jones co-founded Tidy Productions with producer David Peet. The company produced the series Jones presented on BBC Radio Wales