Marks & Spencer has secured the talents of Oscar-winner Olivia Colman alongside a raft of A-Listers for its Christmas food ads this year. The U.K. retailer goes back to its long-running, tried-and-tested "food porn" style ads for the campaign, by Grey London, with the tagline "This is not just Christmas food...this is M&S Christmas food." However, Colman's voiceover gives it a 2020 twist.

She starts off by exclaiming. "Cor..what a year. Let's try to make Christmas a little brighter, shall we?" and segues straight into hard core liquor, salivating over a bottle of gin liqueur while, noting "What a great place to start." Colman—whose playful narration makes her a fitting choice for the campaign—goes on to eyeball some smoked salmon, mini beef-and-porcini yorkshires and triple chocolate panettone.

As well as Colman, other actors voicing the campaign by Grey London in spots yet to come will include Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Eddie Redmayne, Naomie Harris , Gillian Anderson, Jeremy Irons and Julie Walters. The campaign includes donations to charities picked by the actors. M&S had earlier announced it would not be advertising its clothing and homewares on TV this Christmas.

The food TV ad comes a day after M&S was involved in a food-related tweet that went viral for somewhat the wrong reasons. It promoted a new donut product on Twitter with the line "Who wants a bite of Santa's Yumnuts?" prompting users of the platforms, including several brands, to weigh in with comments. Comedy Central UK tweeted: "Go home M&S, you're drunk" while Specsavers offered "If anybody needs help popping their eyes back in after reading this, give us a shout", and Marmite replied "We sense the name might be a case of #LoveItOrHateit."