Magic & Sparkle...

 It must be nearly Christmas, the ads are on the telly again. The new Marks and Spencer ad has grabbed my attention this time, not for the cost - although I expect it ran to a handful of millions - but for the semi-porn, slightly pulp-horror storyline.

Christmas, a time of sweetness and light, comfort and joy, angels, wolves, witches, falling down manholes and being chased by blood-splattered playing cards apparently. Now I’m not adverse to weird gothic spookiness or scantily clad young women, but this reads like one of my more wacky cheese-directed nightmares.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood would have loved this filmella.

Scene 1:

A white dog runs down a dark cobbled street and disappears down the steps from The Omen. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley - dressed up for the winter weather in best M and S - runs after him. She spots an open manhole and, instead of steering clear like any sensible person, clumsily falls down it. It seems the dog wasn’t a Westie at all, but a white rabbit pretending to be a dog; whilst Miss Huntington-Whitely is Alice. As she falls and falls nearly all her clothes fall off too. Careful! But when she lands in the snow she’s luckily dressed once again. Phew!

Scene 2

RHW turns up at what appears to be a wake with David Gandy at the head of the table wearing a top hat and a really slimy, slurpy smile. Of course, the food on the table isn’t just any old food and the plates and candelabras probably aren’t just any old plates and candelabras - well, it is M and S. But that’s still no reason for Rosie to nick a bag. In answer to this act of theft, a really scary woman in red chucks a load of playing cards at Rosie which turn into playing card people covered in blood and chase her.

Scene 3:

Rosie, dressed in red (like red riding hood perhaps... yawn) is harried by the shadow of a wolf for a second or two for probably no reason other than they had a wood cut-out available. Then, in an act of tragic discontinuity, she then arrives at a gingerbread house. Stepping into the house, a talking picture out of Harry Potter does absolutely nothing at all. Suddenly (hands up in mock shock) she stands on a rug and is whisked away - no oven for her this time - and incredibly all her clothes fall off (almost and again) revealing that she likes red underwear the ideal present for every man’s wife or civic partner – not. She presses her breasts together for no reason but it does look nice, and suddenly Errol Flynn appears on the carpet behind her. They fly off together hugging hard and smiling dreamy smiles until they arrive at some strange looking place that appears to be covered in dust from a nuclear fall-out.

Scene 4:

Rosie lands and from behind a tree steps a Tyrolean swineherd. They are joined by a woman with short grey hair, an even greyer, shorter outfit and Yoko Ono with really big hair but no John. Wait, this is Oz, I get it now, and off they all skip down the sparkly yellowish brickish road until they come to a big green door. Does Shaking Stevens live here we wonder. They ring a very cheap white plastic doorbell and a bloody huge Helena Bonham Carter head appears. She looks really pissed off - like somebody has hidden her cocaine - so Rosie clicks her red heels together in a Nazi salute (this girls is a real fan of red) and suddenly steps out into the 'real' world from a Punch and Judy tent.

Scene 4:

Helen Bonham Carter wanders down the road dressed for a funeral. The dog (or is it a rabbit?) is in her arms. Is she going to eat the poor thing? No. She passes the dog back to Rosie and wanders back to whatever bar she’s wandered out of.

Magic and Sparkle?

Gothic and Porno more like.

Watch it here