Pub to rival John Lewis with Christmas spoof

The Gardener’s Arms, known locally as the Murderers, in Norwich has filmed its own spoof of the famous Love Actually scene, with a customer declaring his love for the pub.

The video, which was the brainchild of pub owner Philip Cutter’s daughter, Molly, was filmed with the help of her colleagues and is already proving a smash hit with customers and beyond.

“For years, we’ve been doing something for our customer for Christmas,” said Phillip, “and this year we thought we’d do something different, just as a nod and a thank you for the support to our customers.

“My daughter and I sat down and said what can we do, and she said it would be good to do Love Actually, but with someone who loves the pub that much, and it grew from there.”

The script was written by Molly, who also played the role of the pub cleaner. She enlisted the help of a professional videographer, Will Austin, and a local playwright Aiden Parsons played the role of the suitor.

The pub, which won Best Pub for Sport in the Great British Pub Awards, has been run by the family for 37 years, and Philip said the video was his way of giving something back to the customers.

“It’s genuinely a Christmas card to our customers, we didn’t intend it to be an advert for the pub, but it’s come out really well.”

He said the feedback has been fantastic, and despite only launching less than 24 hours ago, has already had 5,000 views on Facebook.

“We’re really excited about it, and we’ve even got plans for another one next year as well. So depending how this one goes, maybe we’d like to do something annually, just to rival John Lewis!”