Sheridan Smith 'returning to Gavin and Stacey' for 'brilliant' scenes

Sheridan Smith is expected to return to 'Gavin and Stacey' for the last-ever episode.

The 43-year-old star portrayed James Corden's on-screen sister Rudi in the second and third series of the comedy show, and she is said to have shot scenes for the upcoming Christmas special, which will be the programme's final episode.

A source told The Sun newspaper: "She is an incredible actress and stepped straight back into Rudi’s shoes.

"It was like no time had passed at all.

"Sheridan was over the moon she could go back into the fold and her scenes are brilliant."

Last week, James took to Instagram to reveal filming had started on the Christmas special, and a day later he told how the cast and crew were shooting in Barry Island for one last time.

In July, the star admitted he had "finished" writing the script for the final time, after he and co-writer Ruth Jones - who plays Nessa in the comedy - confirmed in May they were bringing the series back for a Christmas Day outing.

Speaking on 'The Chris Evans Breakfast Show' on Virgin Radio, James grew emotional as he said: "Last night we were like 'oh that's it now. We've finished. We'll never write anything that Pam says again.

"We'll never write interior Gwen's house. We'll never come up with an interesting thing that Bryn's done.'

"We just looked at each other and we were like 'wow - isn't that amazing?' "

James previously revealed he and Ruth had been making the final touches to the script for the festive episode, but finding the time was tricky because of their respective stage commitments.

Speaking on Capital Breakfast, he said: "It's written right but now we're doing rewrites. So we have to, we have to remove some time, we have to change some bits around.

"So we've been doing that, it's quite tough because Ruth’s in 'Sister Act' over in the West End at the minute, and I'm doing 'The Constituent' at the Old Vic."