My heartbreak as I started on Gavin & Stacey

Sitcom star Joanna looks back at 'miserable' time

- BY MARK JEFFERIES Showbiz Editor

BACK in 2009, Joanna Page was at the top of her game and should have been enjoying the success of Gavin & Stacey.

But the actress, who played Stacey in the beloved sitcom, has revealed that away from the limelight her “heart was breaking” as work commitments meant she and her husband were forced to live apart.

She was in London while her other half, actor James Thornton, was in Leeds working on Emmerdale, playing John Barton from 2009 to 2012.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Joanna, 48, who married in 2003, said: “Of course, when a job comes in, you know, your first thought is you've got to go and do it.

“So suddenly we went from being so close, and, you know, having been with each other all the time, to him off living up in Leeds, and I'm all the way down in London. So to the outside world, it looks like your life was so wonderful,