Gavin & Stacey’s Pam Urged To Go Vegan For Final Episode

Animal rights organization PETA has called for Pam Shipman, the beloved fictional Gavin & Stacey character played by Alison Steadman, to be made vegan for the finale.

Show writers James Corden and Ruth Jones recently confirmed that the hugely popular BBC sitcom will be returning for its final episode on Christmas Day. In response to the news, PETA wrote a letter urging them to give Pam a “compassionate character arc” by making her vegan.

Pam going vegan ‘could get everybody talking’

The cast of Gavin and Stacey standing in front of a large love heart on the wall of a restaurant — Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo Gavin & Stacey returns for its final episode this Christmas

Gavin & Stacey follows the lives of the two married title characters and their very different families. It ran for three seasons after first airing in 2007, and it has a huge and loyal fanbase.

Fans of the show will be aware that a running joke in the series is that Pam, who is the mother of lead character Gavin, pretends to be vegetarian. After becoming flustered in an early episode when meeting the parents of Gavin’s new fiancée Stacey, she accidentally says that she’s stopped eating meat, and then becomes too embarrassed to go back on her words.

Elisa Allen, vice president of programmes at PETA UK, wrote that the Pam vegan storyline would “get everybody talking.” She added that in the four years since the last Gavin & Stacey special aired, “we’ve learned more about how eating meat affects animals, the environment, and human health – so it’s only right that Pam should put a vegan turkey on the table.”

‘Three Tofu Blocks Pam’

One of the most quoted lines from the show is Pam saying that she’s worried she’ll become known as “Three Steaks Pam” if her friends find out she planned to eat three steaks while on the Atkins Diet. Referencing this scene, Allen wrote: “By adopting the nickname ‘Three Tofu Blocks Pam’, the character would be a champion for animals and the planet – ditching animal derived foods spares the lives of nearly 200 living, feeling beings every year.”

Allen pointed out that more than one billion animals are killed for food each year in the UK, many of whom are “languishing on filthy factory farms.”

“By making Pam vegan for the finale, you’ll ensure that – whether or not she gets ‘drunk, drunk’ this Christmas – she’ll enjoy a ‘well lush’ spread while sparing clever pigs, curious turkeys, and industrious fish suffering. This act of compassion promoting a better tomorrow for everyone would be a wonderful note on which to end such a beloved series.”