Watch: Uncle Bryn’s surprise entrance at Nessa’s charity fundraiser

Imagine being in the audience when this happened.

There you are having a wonderful evening in the company of Nessa and friends at The Grand Pavilion in Porthcawl – a fundraiser for the RNLI staged by actress Ruth Jones to raise funds for a charity that is dear to her, when the evening finished with a huge surprise – the appearance of Rob Brydon as Uncle Bryn.

In a video that has resurfaced on social media, the actress takes up the story of how the evening came about and how it ended in hugely memorable fashion.

“Because I’ve got connections with RNLI in Porthcawl through my family and being a Porthcawl girl I was asked if I could help out with doing some fundraising,” she said.

“So we put on an event Nessa and Friends push the boat out for the RNLI, and I got into character dressed up as Nessa.”

She added: “I did have a number one hit with Islands In The Stream which I sang with Rob Brydon. Right at the end of the evening, obviously Rob wasn’t there, so I was looking for a volunteer to come and sing Bryn’s part.

(As Nessa) “So obviously Bryn’s not here tonight, so I need somebody to come and sing his part.’

“And I was just about to pick somebody when suddenly ‘Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!’ And Rob Brydon came through the back of the venue, opened the doors and walked through the crowd. People were like, “What?’ And he came up and sang ‘Islands in the Stream’.

“It was just gorgeous.”

@rnli Oh! What’s occuring? Listen to our #RNLI200 podcast with Ruth Jones – link in our bio. Ruth discusses what the RNLI means to her growing up in Porthcawl and how she showed her support for the RNLI by putting on a special fundraising event. #podcastclips #gavinandstacey #nessa #porthcawl #podcastreccomendation ♬ original sound – RNLI

Ruth had earlier entertained a packed venue as Nessa with some of her showbiz friends including Bonnie Tyler, Only Men Aloud and Craig Gallivan and raised around £18,000 for the RNLI charity.

James Corden had opened the evening with a video message from ‘Smithy’ which was filmed on the set of James’s American chat show. The Late Late Show host introducing the star of the evening, Nessa.

The evening was initiated by Ruth in support of the Porthcawl RNLI volunteers, one of whom is her brother-in-law crewman Etienne Cronje.

Once a date had been set she then made all the arrangements for the evening which included a three course meal and entertainment.

To help raise funds on the night Ruth went around the tables having selfies taken with members of the audience. Raffle tickets were also sold and a raffle drawn. That was followed by an auction which included a wide variety of items professionally sold by auctioneer Andrew Thomas.