Gavin & Stacey reveals surreal answer to what happened after Nessa proposal

At first, it isn't clear how things came to this, but Nessa eventually spills the full story to Stacey (Joanna Page) in a vulnerable heart-to-heart after the Shipman and West families descend on Billericay.

Nessa explains that, after she popped the question, Smithy was left in a stunned silence. He took the ring from her hand and looked at it for a few moments, clearly in a major quandary about what to do next.

Unfortunately, before he had a chance to say "yes" or "no", Gavin (Mathew Horne) came walking out the front door and interrupted the scene, prompting Nessa to come up with a hilarious excuse as to why she was down on one knee.

In a bid to cover-up the botched proposal, she tells Gavin that she is simply practicing her Cossack dancing for an imminent gig that she has been booked for – and by all accounts, she nails a practical demonstration!

In fact, when Stacey grills Gavin on why he never suspected that anything strange was going on, he tells her that he became distracted by "some of the finest Cossack dancing" he'd ever seen.

For those unfamiliar, Cossack is the national dance of Ukraine – and a very challenging one at that, in which performers rapidly jump and kick from a low squatting position.

If you would like an illustration, here's Strictly Come Dancing's Neil Jones trying it out for himself in a 2016 episode of It Takes Two:

Alas, we don't get to see Nessa performing a Cossack dance, but her proficiency in the highly skilled style is in-keeping with the mysterious nature of the character, who seems to have lived a rather storied life – if her many anecdotes are to be believed.

After five years of speculation, its doubtful that any Gavin & Stacey fan could have guessed that this would be what happens in the immediate aftermath of the big proposal, but it paints such a wonderful picture that we really wouldn't have it any other way.

Gavin & Stacey is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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