BBC3 sitcom Gavin and Stacey, written by and starring Ruth Jones and James Corden, has gained nominations in an impressive seven categories for this year’s British Comedy Awards.

The show is nominated for Best New Television Comedy and Best British Comedy; whilst Jones and Corden are each nominated as Best Comedy Newcomers – along with their co-stars Matthew Horne and Joanna Page. The newcomer nominations for Horne is somewhat of a surprise since he has been a recognisable comedy actor ever since playing Ben Birkett in Teachers in 2004. Similarly 2007 could not be called Ruth Jones’ first year in comedy – she has had starring roles in Nighty Night, Little Britain, I’m With Stupid and Saxondale prior to Gavin and Stacey.

Jones has also been nominated for Best Television Comedy Actress – going up against Catherine Tate and Liz Smith.

In total the BBC has eighteen nominations, ITV has three and Channel 4 has seven.

The presenters from Channel 4′s The Friday Night Project, Alan Carr and Justin Lee Collins, have been jointly nominated for best comedy entertainment personality, against Stephen Fry for BBC2′s QI, and Simon Anstell, the former Popworld presenter turned host of BBC2′s Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

The award for best television comedy actor sees a four-way fight between Jack Dee for BBC4′s comedy Lead Balloon and Lee Mack for BBC1′S Not Going Out, alongside two of Channel 4′s biggest comedy talents, the Peep Show actor David Mitchell, and Kevin Bishop from the spoof comedy Star Stories.

The winners will be revealed in a ceremony hosted by Jonathan Ross on December 5th. Despite the fact the TV coverage of the awards has always been a ratings hit for ITV it still remains to be seen whether or not this year’s ceremony will be shown on TV. ITV have paid £700,000 to the producers for the rights however have not yet reserved their decision not to broadcast the event whilst the investigation into alleged irregularities with the 2005 phone voting is ongoing.

from British Sitcom Guide