There was concern earlier this year that the M&S Christmas ad would have to be, gulp, cancelled. The reason? New Government rules attempting to ban pre-watershed advertisements glorifying food with high salt, fat or sugar content. Basically, all of the good stuff.
“This country is regulating to stop people talking about mince pies during the day,” M&S chair Archie Norman said. Boo.
Thankfully for us gluttons, that ban has been pushed back to January 6 2026, and M&S Food is going out in a blaze of glory. While some supermarkets (*cough* Sainsbury’s *cough*) are playing it safe with breadsticks, this is the first and possibly final Christmas missive to feature some genuinely delicious looking food.
Riffing on the theme “Traffic Jamming”, Dawn French returns with her annoying Jiminy Cricket-esque fairy and is forced to suffer everyone’s worst nightmare: Christmas travel chaos. As a fan of public transport, I usually condemn those attempting to be Driving Home For Christmas (by Chris Rea). But given Network Rail’s insane plans this year, which include closing Waterloo, Euston and Liverpool Street Station, I suspect many of us will be forced to clog up the roads and contribute to the climate crisis. Bah, humbug.
French is understandably frustrated by the whole experience, until some fairy dust opens up an idling M&S Food lorry and transforms it into a cosy front room filled with party treats. With some encouragement from her conscience-fairy, French invites the other stuck passengers in from the cold and everyone ham-fistedly announces the full name of each canapé.
In fairness, they do all look and sound delicious. M&S Black Prawn Paella Bites? Yes please. Fish Chips and Peas in a Salt and Vinegar Batter, perfectly portioned out? Absolutely. Tom Kerridge can keep his paté, although I am sure that’s lovely too.
My only gripe is the tired running joke that French is, well, a fattie who wants to hog all the (mince) pies. She’s one of our most gifted women comedians, an expert at physical comedy, but she’s also a very petite women. I hate all the ‘weight loss secret’ stories coming out, while the age of Ozempic sees every celebrity wither away before our very eyes. French, for her part, says she lost the weight through diet and exercise in order to have important surgery. Which is her prerogative. I just wish she wasn’t still being typecast.
Anyway, enjoy your GLP-1 injections, suckers, all the more M&S canapés for me.
