Gavin and Stacey Are Winners – Again!

GAVIN and Stacey and Doctor Who continued their sweep of awards last night, winning two of the top prizes at a glittering ceremony for the TV industry’s elite.

BBC Wales hit Doctor Who, starring David Tennant, won the award for Best TV Show of 2008.

And Barry-based sitcom Gavin & Stacey, starring Ruth Jones and Joanna Page was named Non-Terrestrial Programme of the Year at the Channel of the Year Awards, voted for by an executive committee of the Edinburgh International Television Festival. It means the series has yet another gong to the two Baftas it picked up last year and the seven prizes it won at the British Comedy Awards.

Elsewhere BBC1 was named Best Terrestrial Channel while youth channel BBC3 took Best Non-Terrestrial Channel, beating competition from E4, Sky One, BBC4, ITV2 and Dave.

The Apprentice, starring Sir Alan Sugar and a bunch of business wannabes on BBC1, was named Terrestrial Programme of the Year.

Elsewhere at the festival the new boss of Doctor Who revealed that he would like to see the hit show turned into a movie. Scriptwriter Steven Moffat has replaced Russell T Davies, who revived Doctor Who in 2005, as the lead writer and executive producer of the hit BBC1 sci-fi show.

Scottish-born Moffat said that Steven Spielberg was a Doctor Who fan and that Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson had a Sylvester McCoy outfit – from the actor who played the seventh Doctor.

He said: “I’m not against it. I don’t think it’s the most important thing for Doctor Who. A movie is one 90 minutes a year. Soyes, so long as it never gets in the way of the show. If it gets in the way of the show that’s appalling. It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it’s great and fantastic, yeah.”

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