John Lewis' Christmas advert is out for the 2022 festive season and is a sweet tale about a dad trying to skateboard ahead of the arrival of a foster child. The theme of the ad is about raising awareness of children in care and the cast of the promo film includes some faces that might be familiar.
Titled 'The Beginner', the ad shows the story of a middle-aged man learning to skateboard, before welcoming a young teenager into the family home. As always, the mini-story is set to a cover of a hit song, previous years have seen Oasis' Half The World Away and The Smith's Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, this year it's All the Small Things by Blink 182, covered by American singer, Mike Greier, read more about him, here.
John Lewis said it understood that not all foster carers had the benefit of knowing who they would be looking after in advance and that its broader campaign also featured “authentic voices of carers” and “young people with different experiences of a complex care system”.
Read more: Christmas adverts 2022 from Marks and Spencer to John Lewis, Boots, Asda, Aldi and McDonald's
But it said that “in a challenging year, we felt it was important to demonstrate that it’s what we do that matters most”, adding it was proud to use its Christmas ad to “generate conversation and action around an often overlooked issue”.
The dad going through his paces in the advert has been in many British TV shows and a few films, too. He's played by Yorkshire actor John Paul Hurley and we wonder if he had a stunt double?
The 48 year-old actor has starred in the likes of Silent Witness, The Reckoning, Shetland, Shameless, Rillington Place, The Lost King and Peaky Blinders. And in 2007, he won best actor at the European Independent Film Awards in Paris for his role in the short Laid Off, which was filmed in Glasgow.
The youngster Ellie is played by rising actor Brooke Hart who has had a number of film, commercial and theatre roles .In 2017 she starred in the NSPCC Say Something campaign and she also played Paige in the National Theatre production of Love.
The actress attended Stagecoach, has a bursary at the Norwood school and holds qualifications from LAMDA. Brooke also trained for six years with the Swansea-based, Mark Jermin Acting Academy.
'Mum', who has a small role in the advert, is played by Victoria Elliott who has starred in the likes of Emmerdale and movie Ammonite alongside Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet.
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