Watch the Beefy Boys hilarious but very well produced Christmas advert 2023

Shrewsbury's burger restaurant The Beefy Boys' owners has launched a new video which shows a young boy spending his last tenner on a meal for an old lady.

As snow falls, and a heart-tugging, acoustic ballad plays in the background, we see him drive away on a bus as he looks back wistfully, reflecting on his good deed.

But all is not what it seems and the video has a sting in its tail.

The restaurant owners say the reaction online suggests people are enjoying this antidote to soppy adverts, which was created on a budget of just £400.

“Oh my, this is definitely the best Christmas advert of 2023,” said Facebook user Tracey Jones.

“Brilliant, I was totally reaching for the tissues, and then I spat out my tea laughing,” said Emma Louise Simcock.

Anthony 'Murf' Murphy, co-founder of the Hereford, Shrewsbury and Cheltenham based independent burger business The Beefy Boys, said: "The whole Christmas advert thing has become a bit of a genre itself now. Every year, they seem to get worse. We thought it would be fun to sort of poke fun at the genre."

Jake of Diamonds, a musician and The Voice 2022 semi-finalist, recorded the soundtrack for the advert - a melancholy cover of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Going To Give You Up’.

"We knew we wanted something that had that 'John Lewis' feel but give it a twist," Murf added.

"There are a few major Christmas ad clichés: take a famous song, do a slowed-down cover of it, lots of soft focus, emotional moments, soppy story, etc. But, in the end, we ultimately wanted it to be fun and make people laugh as well as pull at the heartstrings.

"Christmas should be fun so we approached the Christmas Advert Genre with a very British sense of humor. So many of these adverts are joyless, influenced by focus groups and marketing companies; they end up not resonating with anyone."

"We were bowled over by the reaction to the video. We were very proud of the finished product. We never thought it would go quite as viral as it has or have such an amazingly positive response from people. It was one of those times when everything came together—the cast was amazing, Jake of Diamonds' cover version was brilliant, the shots were amazing, and the story worked. We are very proud of it."

Jake of Diamonds plans to release the cover track on December 16 while Murf from The Beefy Boys will share the recipe to his 'Christmas Boy Burger' on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen on December 23.