Joanna Page has admitted she thought Ruth Jones was calling about leaked photos when she had several missed calls.

Joanna Page

Joanna Page

The 'Gavin & Stacey' actress - who starred as Stacey Shipman on the beloved sitcom from 2007 to 2009 - feared "dodgy photos" of her were about to be released when the show's creator tried to contact her about reuniting for the upcoming Christmas special.

Joanna, 42, told The Sun newspaper's Bizarre TV column: "I thought, 'Is she going to tell me dodgy photos of me are going to hit the papers?' "

'Gavin and Stacey' said goodbye to fans after three series, a whirlwind romance and a lot of laughs.

Now, the couple and their eccentric family and friends will be back on the small screen 10 years later after creators, writers and co-stars Ruth Jones, 53, and James Corden, 41, decided to get the gang back together again.

However, Ruth was not the only one who had trouble getting hold of the cast, as James struggled to contact Melanie Walters - who plays Stacey's mum Gwen - because she was ignoring his calls.

She explained: "I thought I was being trolled so I ignored his text. He rang, it was a weird number, so I ignored it. The fourth time, he left a voicemail."

Meanwhile, the talented pair have confessed their first draft of the festive special wasn't "good enough".

After fans have waited a decade for the BBC sitcom's return, Ruth and James feared they were being "naive" about plans for a one-off revival.

James - who plays Smithy - admitted : "We'd confused ourselves in thinking there needed to be an absolute narrative arc - there was so much in the story, there was no room for the characters to breathe.

"We'd written about 40 pages, and we sat and we read it ... and we both went, 'This just isn't good enough. It doesn't feel like the show. It doesn't feel like it's right.'

"There was a real silence in this room ... a sense of, 'Maybe we were too naive to think we could pick it up.' "

Ruth - who plays Nessa - says the duo stepped away from writing for a day and later chatted about the issues as they dined with their partners David Peet and Julia Carey.

She said: "We did then identify what it was. There needed to be a heart to it, a big moment that resonated."

Tagged in