Gavin and Stacey set for Christmas special - report

Hit sitcom Gavin and Stacey is set to return to the screens for a one-off special in December, according to a report in the US.

A new episode will be filmed over the summer, with a view to airing at Christmas time, Deadline reports.

It was last on our screens for a Christmas special in 2019 after a nine-year break and ended on a cliff-hanger after Nessa proposed to Smithy.

BBC Studios has been asked to comment.

The show follows the lives of Essex boy Gavin, played by Matthew Horne, and Barry girl Stacey, played by Joanna Page.

Their best friends Smithy and Nessa - played by the show's writers James Corden and Ruth Jones - also strike up an unlikely relationship.

Despite apparently disliking one another, the pair have a son together, Neil "the Baby" Noel Edmond Smith.

Deadline reported that the majority of the main cast are expected to return for the special, including Rob Brydon, who plays Stacey's eccentric Uncle Bryn, and Alison Steadman and Larry Lamb, who play Gavin's parents Pamela and Mick.

The show is currently in pre-production, with filming due to begin in a few months' time, Deadline reported, adding that it was being produced by Steve Coogan's Baby Cow, Jones' Tidy Productions and Fulwell 73, which is co-owned by Corden.

The 2019 Christmas special, which ended with Nessa declaring her love for Smithy, was the UK's most-watched scripted TV programme of the 2010s, with 17.1 million viewers.

It was the most-watched comedy since the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special in 2002, which was seen by 17.4 million people.

Only sporting events and the 2010 X Factor final were watched by more people during the previous decade.

Speaking in August, Steadman and Lamb said another full series of the show would be "too draining", but they were open to another Christmas special.

"A special would be great fun and it wouldn't be too draining and exhausting," Steadman told Radio Times.

Lamb said: "A one-hour special, which is three weeks of really intense work, that will do me."