The John Lewis Christmas advert has been released.
The two-minute and 30 seconds ad tells the story of a young girl called Ava – played by 10-year-old schoolgirl Ruby Dailly – and an excitable dragon called Edgar, and is played out with Bastille frontman Dan Smith covering the REO Speedwagon hit ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ as the background music.
John Lewis customer director Craig Inglis said: "It started from a spark of an idea – a little dragon’s excitement about Christmas – and became the story of how someone goes the extra mile for their best friend to give just the right gift.
"It’s a funny, heart-warming story that will resonate with our customers as they seek out the perfect gifts for their loved ones this Christmas."
The commercial was filmed in Budapest with around 100 extras used.It begins with the over-excited Edgar accidentally burning down someone’s snowman when he breathes fire on the structure, despite trying to help by putting a carrot on it.
He looks extremely sad after his accidental fire-starter antics, but Edgar’s eagerness soon returns when he sees kids playing on some ice and he rushes over to join in.
But in all his fire-breathing excitement, Edgar accidentally burns a huge hole through their icy play area, leaving some youngsters looking disgruntled as they are left standing in a huge puddle up to their middle.
Edgar is later seen with a scarf wrapped around his snout to ensure he doesn’t mistakenly burn anything else to the ground, with Ava keeping a keen eye on him.
Despite her and Edgar’s best efforts, he loves seeing the huge village Christmas tree so much that fire begins pouring out of his ears and burns to the tree to a crisp, resulting in several angry-looking villagers turning on him.
Edgar flees back to his house and won’t come out, despite Ava’s attempts to see if he is OK.
She camps outside his house all night but to no avail.
However, she manages to rouse the downtrodden dragon from his sulk when she brings him round a Christmas pudding for him to donate to the village’s Christmas banquet.
As he appears at the door of the village hall while everyone is tucking into their turkey, the villagers begin to clamber under the table for fear of a repeat of Edgar’s fire-breathing calamities.
But there is of course a happy ending to the festive ad.
On this occasion, he simply produces the pudding and breathes fire onto it to light it up, only for the villagers to launch into a round of applause.
A message then appears stating: "Show them how much you care."
Last year’s advert saw Sir Elton John take centre stage after he penned a reported £5 million deal for the ad, which saw him perform his huge hit ‘Your Song’.
John Lewis Christmas advert 2019 released
