Shropshire Star

Nation’s favourite TV couples revealed in new poll

Fawlty Towers’ Basil and Sybil, The Good Life’s Tom and Barbara, and Del Boy and Raquel from Only Fools And Horses also appeared on the list.

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Mathew Horne and Joanna Page

Gavin and Stacey have topped a poll of the nation’s favourite fictional TV couples.

The pair polled higher than Basil and Sybil from Fawlty Towers, who came second, and third-placed Tom and Barbara from The Good Life in the YouGov survey, which was carried out for streaming service BritBox.

Mathew Horne and Joanna Page recently returned to the small screen as the popular couple for the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special.

Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special 2019
James Corden, Joanna Page, Mathew Horne and Ruth Jones in the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special (Tom Jackson/BBC/PA)

Also featured on the list of 15 couples are Del Boy and Raquel from Only Fools And Horses, who came fourth, and Jack and Vera Duckworth from Coronation Street, who came fifth.

The Royle Family’s Jim and Barbara and Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary and Matthew were also named among the public’s favourite fictional couples.

More than 2,000 adults were polled as part of the BritBox survey.

From January 30 all of the pairings included in the survey will be available on BritBox as part of the Love, Lust & Loathing: The Nation’s Favourite TV Couple collection.

Fawlty Towers staff reunion
Fawlty Towers’ Basil and Sybil came second in the poll (Ian West/PA)

Reemah Sakaan, Britbox’s chief brand and creative development officer, said: “While Gavin and Stacey come fairly close to epitomising the perfect TV couple, our countdown really shows how most of the couples we really fall for are those couples who can’t live with and can’t live without each other.”

In the latest Gavin And Stacey episode, Horne and Page’s characters now had three children and were settled into family life.

The programme was a ratings success and was named the biggest scripted show of the decade, the most popular Christmas Day programme of the decade, and the ninth biggest transmission of the decade, according to the BBC.

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