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Excellente! After painstaking research, the Diary can exclusively reveal

the name of the director responsible for that Ferrero Rocher ad. We’ve

obtained this exclusive interview with Pert Le Veellee of Beechurst

Films, who claims to have directed such gems as Cockburn’s Port and

Condor tobacco in the dim and distant past.

Diary: The big debate is not whether the ‘ambassador’s party’ is good or

bad but just where did the vision for such an extraordinary post-modern

deconstruction of contemporary advertising come from?

Le veal: Absolutely. It was me. I like to think that the ‘ambassador’s

party’ was simply and self-consciously naff before its time.

D: As you say, at that time it was all slick, aspirational images of

infeasibly glamorous people in ludicrously over-designed spaces bathed

in preposterously lavish light. But your film anticipated the rather

forced attempts to appear technically inept that are now so in vogue.

L: Yes, absolutely. Forget all this pseudo home video, we-don’t-really-

know-what-we’re-doing stuff. Those people really don’t know what they’re

doing. To do bad work properly you really do. Look at Les Dawson and

that piano. With the ‘ambassador’s party’ we were there years ago.

It took hours to get the dubbing that bad.

D: You talk about the environment of the film. The ambassador’s palatial

reception room was filmed in the Baroque splendour of the Palais d’Or in

Tuscany, was it not? Were filming permissions difficult to obtain?

L: It was Surrey, actually. It’s a community centre in Guildford with

quite a nice woody library.

D: Crueller pundits have suggested that the ‘ambassador’s party’ is

actually just a scene clipped from a low-budget porno movie and that the

party itself later disintegrated into a sordid orgy of erotically

charged nakedness. Is this true and, if so, did the BACC prevent you

from using these scenes in the ad?

L: No. If some rather unscrupulous people subsequently went on to

produce salacious filth inspired by my work I take no responsibility or

pride in that.

D: Admen are often accused of plagiarising feature films for ideas. But

in the light of your scene with the champagne bucket, ice cubes and the

small balls of chocolate, how did you feel when you saw that sequence in

9 1/2 Weeks?

L: I was rather flattered, actually.

D: The strategy of the campaign suggests that we know the ambassador is

a Ferrero Rocher buyer and, therefore, the woman will be his sex slave.

Once word got out that you were the man behind it, were you personally

inundated with similar offers?

L: I couldn’t possibly comment on that. I’m happily married.

D: The final shot of the film is clearly a highly sophisticated piece of

multi-layered matting. Can you tell our readers how the chocolate

pyramid effect was achieved? Was it hard to find a post-production house

capable of doing work to that standard?

L: The truth is, we did it for real. We actually built the pyramid. We

piled up the chocolates and then stuck them together.

D: With Flame?

L: No, with glue.

The uncut version of the ‘ambassador’s party’ and Pert’s other work can

be seen by arrangement. Give Philippa Tedder a call on 0171-580 8142.