Gavin & Stacey will come to a close this festive season, with the much-loved British comedy airing its long-awaited concluding episode The Finale on Christmas Day. The show made stars of James Corden, Ruth Jones, Mat Horne and Joanna Page and first aired over three series from 2007-2010, with a Christmas special back in 2019. The theme music for every episode is a swaying acoustic number titled Run by Stephen Fretwell, an elusive singer-songwriter from Scunthorpe who has only released one record since 2007 – 2021’s excellent Busy Guy – but who is held up as a big influence by indie big hitters such as Arctic Monkeys and Courteeners. In his dormant years, the use of Run on one of the BBC’s biggest shows must have come in handy for Fretwell but he told this writer a few years ago that he almost turned the opportunity down. Well, he did turn the opportunity down.
“My publisher called me up and said, “there's this new show, it's got James Corden and Ruth Jones in it and it's coming out on BBC Three. We don't know anything else about it, but apparently James Corden has picked all the music and he's a big music head and he wants to use Run as the theme song. I've just got the thing through now, so I've got to get you to approve it,” he said. “And I said, ‘Certainly not. No way. I'm not having a fucking theme song on some fucking show we've never heard of,’ and my publisher Joe said, "Okay, alright.'”
