The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Gavin and Stacey: Barry’s best friends
Barry Island is making a crackin’ comeback, and not just for Christmas, says Kerry Walker
Unbelievable as it may seem, it is 11 years since the last Christmas special of Gavin & Stacey aired, leaving viewers in stitches with scenes such as Smithy belting out Do They Know It’s Christmas, Nessa and Dave Coaches giving everyone a single gift-wrapped Celebration chocolate, and Mick doing some “Nigella s---” with his Norfolk turkey. The episode where the Barry folk descended on Billericay for the festivities was comedy gold.
The New Year’s Day finale in 2010 saw 10.25 million viewers tune in, and came to an emotional close with a doting Gavin and pregnant Stacey, plus Nessa, Smithy and baby Neil on the beachfront in Barry.
Fans thought it was the end, but now the Bafta-winning sitcom is back for one episode on Christmas Day, and co-writer James Corden (Smithy) has promised it will be nothing short of a “nostalgic joy bomb”. So, what’s occurin’? Filming, for a start. The cast created a summer stir in Barry, and Ruth Jones (Nessa) generated a lot of sparkle when she switched on the town’s Christmas lights.
“The announcement of the Christmas special has brought a new wave of excitement, with fans visiting to catch a glimpse of the filming,” says Nia Hollins, principal tourism and marketing officer at the Vale of Glamorgan Council. “Barry Island is a hot topic once again – and we’re loving it.”
It’s easy to pin down much-loved familiar locations from the last series with a little detective work or on a guided tour (£30 adults, £21 children; britmovietours. com). Among them you will find sloping Trinity Street with its rows of red brick terraces, home to Uncle Bryn, Gwen and their toy boy-loving neighbour, Doris; King Square, where Nessa performed her human statue act; and the Island Leisure amusement arcades, Boofy’s chippy and Marco’s Café on the beachfront.
But a surge in interest in Barry since Gavin & Stacey has heralded much-needed change, with a slew of new enterprises and regeneration projects making the seaside town more enticing than ever.
Henry Danter, who bought the run-down Pleasure Park in 2015, has invested millions in new rides and helped to revamp the waterfront. The promenade has been given a makeover and now features beach huts that can be hired by the day, a climbing wall and a landscaped headland walk leading to cliff-backed Jackson’s Bay.
Plans are ambitious, with talk that Barry will soon rival the likes of
Cardiff Bay and Swansea’s Mumbles, without losing a jot of the seaside spirit of its Butlin’s heyday. Hip cafés and shops are constantly popping up, and the Blue Flag beach of Whitmore Bay, a lovely scoop of golden sand, is no longer bleak and deserted.
The Zeraschis, who have done a brisk trade on Barry for the past 60 years and run Marco’s Café – where Stacey briefly worked in the series – have been quick to latch on to the tastes of millennials, with decent espresso replacing Styrofoam cups of builder’s brew. And in 2018, the family opened nearby Zio’s gelateria.
A few minutes’ walk away on Friars Road is Whitmore+Jackson, named after Barry’s two bays. The brainchild of David and Rachel Lewis, the cosy indie café in the Esplanade building does a fine line in brunch – even the doughnuts are vegan. Just across the way is Bay 5 in the born-again
lifeboat station, a modern beachfront coffee house.
North of the waterfront, near Barry Docks station, is another sign Barry is moving with the times: Awesome Wales, a zero-waste, plastic-free store and coffee shop, which emphasises local sourcing. It functions as an eco-aware hub at the
heart of the community.
But the pride and joy of Barry’s reinvented food scene is the Pumphouse, a converted Grade II listed 1880s pumping station, once pivotal to the coal industry. Its biggest draw is Hang Fire Southern Kitchen, which started as a street pop-up and has evolved to become the most popular place in town: its vibe and superb food mean it’s often fully booked.
Owners (and chefs) Sam Evans and Shauna Guinn went on a six-month pilgrimage to the southern United States in 2013, to learn the art of slow and low American barbecue and Louisiana soul food. Suitably briefed, they opened Hang Fire in Barry in
2017 and have since become the stars of the BBC One Wales series Sam and Shauna’s Big Cook-Out.
Under the same red-brick roof and with a similarly urban-cool feel is Academy Espresso Bar, serving freshly roasted, barista-made coffee, craft beer and cocktails, with live music and street food at weekends.
Just a pebble’s throw from the Pumphouse is The Small Space. When it opened in 2018, professional magicians Bryan Gunton and Jasper Blakeley pulled a rabbit out of a hat, transforming a Victorian shop into Britain’s smallest cinema and theatre. Now it’s a deliciously retro, posterplastered, 25-seat space.
According to Hollins, this is all just tip-of-the-iceberg stuff and there’s much more development in the pipeline. “The waterfront area is a hive of activity,” she says. “Construction is already under way at the Goods Shed, an old railway building that will be jam-packed with exciting pop-ups, including James Sommerin (of Michelin-starred Penarth fame) and Hang Fire, plus a microbrewery.”
While a decade ago the resort had certainly seen better days, now it is one of Britain’s seaside success stories, back on the map with a happening events line-up that swings from summer weekenders – food festivals, cinema by the sea and the like – to the wacky New Year’s Day Swim.
“The past 10 years have seen a total resurgence in Barry Island’s popularity, and Gavin & Stacey contributed to that,” says Hollins. As the series returns to our screens, Barry is looking lusher than ever.