A talking toy dog, a disco 'Gran Cave': this year's John Lewis Christmas advert is here

Gloria was going to put cash in the cards. Then her childhood toy dog started talking. In this year's John Lewis Christmas advert — the retailer's 20th — Dame Kristin Scott Thomas plays Gloria, a grandmother whose grandchildren are thoroughly unimpressed by the vintage pull-along dog she retrieves from the attic. When she resorts to cash, the toy, Pickles (modelled on Fisher-Price's Little Snoopy, on sale for some 60 years), springs to life, voiced by Paul Whitehouse, with a verdict: 'You can do better than cash.' A last-minute dash follows — and on Christmas morning the children find she has transformed her study into a 'Gran Cave' of disco balls, ribbons and a record player. Cash forgotten; grandmother triumphant.