Budapest is the backdrop to the Christmas TV ad for major UK retailers Debenhams. “You Shall” is a modern-day Cinderella story in which a charming boy and a pretty if clumsy girl meet on a train. It’s a brief encounter that leaves both looking for something special, including her lost silver stiletto. Nyugati Railway Station, enchantingly illuminated streets, magnificent façades and a metro 4 underpass provide the perfect setting for this splendid love story. Here in beautiful wintertime Budapest, love’s arrow may strike anywhere – though a little help from narrator-cum-Cupid Ewan McGregor in a cameo role always helps.

The narrator’s voice may sound strikingly familiar from the first moment, which is possibly why Hollywood star Ewan McGregor only appears at the very end of this 90-second video. As Richard Cristofoli, Managing Director of Beauty and Marketing at Debenhams, explained to WLB: “Budapest provided the perfect backdrop to Debenhams’ 2017 Christmas campaign, ‘You Shall’. The campaign, which takes inspiration from Charles Perrault’s classic 1697 fairytale, Cinderella, required atmospheric surroundings to bring our modern fairytale to life. The city has an abundance of beautiful places, so much so that it really created a wonderful backdrop to our entire advert. Despite being filmed in the height of summer in 39-degree heat, with the help of the people in the city – and tons of fake snow – we were able to transform a local train station, back streets and a market into fabulous festive scenes”.

You Shall is not the first time that Debenhams has shot a promo video in Budapest – the Hungarian capital also stars in a

2013 mini movie created by the British multinational retailer.