Tesco festive adverts with Ruth Jones....

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The one where she has her son help with the shopping and can't string a sentence together/ bumps into son and tries to hide the fact she's having a NYE party. Surely I cannot be alone in thinking these are pretty shyt and annoying!!!

@botchit same!!! It took a while to click :)

How old is Ruth Jones? Surely too young to be cast as the mother of a 25 year old.

She's 49 but I would have put her at 10 years younger than that.

So she is old enough to be the mother of a 25 year old. However the son in the advert is clearly closer to 35.

creativity-online.com/work/tesco-one-in-front/43769

This shows that the son is meant to be 25 and also that there were a number of women who okayed this hideousness.

I thought they were trying to model the son on the my family son but it was coming across as taking the piss out of people with learning difficulties. I'm surprised more people didn't think that.

I scream internally whenever the secret party ad is on TV.

49? Wow, looking good Ruth!

Yes, I thought learning difficulties son too.

Really not funny, he is too far from normal. Whose 25 year old son goes to Tescos with you, you'd prob send him on his own or him and his DF with a list. Or, most likely he'd be at home on his xbox

I thought LD too. He deliberately acts a bit slow.
In the one where they get the lightbulbs and they want 'something a bit brighter' and Ruth says 'so did I' or something.
I didn't think people really referred to others as 'dim' any more, it's not very PC.

If he'd have played it a bit more Kevin the Teenager (with a younger actor, obvs) it could have worked. In fact, Harry as Kevin or Kathy Burke as Perry would have been hilarious.

Of course he isnt portraying learning difficulties he is what MrsDv said. When im Ruth jones's age i will have a 25yr old eek

Ruth Jones is amazingly talented, so what the hell possessed her to take part in this display of shite?

Exposure and a pay cheque its common for celebs to head advertising campaigns

I found the gluten free advert uncomfortable to watch because of the way the son was portrayed. Some of the things in that were similar to things teenagers I know with ld would do. Dh who doesn' t usually notice things like this also said he didn't like that advert for the same reason.

I didn't know that was Ruth Jones! In fact so far away from what I've seen of her I had to stop and think who Ruth Jones was!

I feel sorry for Ben Miller. Alexander Armstrong seems to be everywhere atm, and Ben Miller is doing a Tesco advert. (Though tbh, I don't watch much TV, so Ben might be in loads of stuff.

And I can't stand the son. Just makes the case for packing my kids bags and throwing them out on their 18th birthday.

Next time I go to Tesco I will hand my list to someone at the door and wait for them to fetch it all for me.

Jane Horrocks' 'Tesco Towers' is a big house in Twickenham.
So you can imagine how much she was paid by Tesco.

And what drove Ruth Jones to sign on the dotted line.

That was the problem for me. The what is gluten free type stuff stuck in with potentially just twatty behaviour.

Oh I loathe them! I don't like Ruth Jones as an actress anyway but the adverts are so ridiculous! Having said that Dd (13) likes the one where the son is trying to have a conversation about cheese!

No, absolutely of course people with LDs are neither dim not slow - and I don't think anyone uses those terms anyway. But the lightbulb analogy seemed to be implying as much, while some of the ways in which the son acts could suggest he has LDs - I don't like those two things combined in that ad.

I had no idea that was Ruth Jones either.

I don't think the son comes across as someone with LDs nor do I think he's meant to. The character is just totally unbelievable for a boy of any age imo and the interactions aren't like any family I know. Waste of money for Tesco I think.

At what point do celebs who are in adverts sign up? After they have read the script? I've always wondered. Once they have signed the contract can they say "I'm not doing this shit"