This week on the channel +746K views this week

Santa takes the night off in Reasoned's M&S reaction

Chloe Dobbs reviews James Norton's festive turn, then gives Wallace and Gromit's Barbour collaboration a watch.

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Reasoned Story of November 10, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

IS THIS THE BEST CHRISTMAS ADVERT OF 2026?! M&S Raises the Bar

Video summary

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0:24James Norton's Santa shaves his beard and sets out to experience Christmas.
2:46Dobbs praises the M&S advert's emphasis on community and sharing food.
5:20She examines how festive atmosphere and product placement work together.
6:40The review switches to Barbour's Wallace & Gromit collaboration.
7:06Wallace's invention takes Gromit's snowy walk in an unexpected direction; the outcome follows in the advert.

James Norton's Santa shaves off his beard and heads out to experience the celebrations he normally supplies. For Chloe Dobbs on Reasoned, that is a much more promising Christmas-advert premise than the John Lewis campaign she criticises at the start.

The reaction was the most watched of Reasoned's fifteen new uploads, reaching roughly 118,000 views. It is a review of retailers' advertising, with M&S's live-action festivities followed by Barbour's animated Wallace & Gromit collaboration.

Dobbs pauses for Norton's transformation, then settles into what she thinks makes the M&S advert work: people gathering, sharing food and including one another. Norton, known for Happy Valley and Grantchester, supplies the star presence. She also considers the commercial mechanics, arguing that the campaign balances a festive feeling with product placement. Her local M&S being closed for refurbishment adds a slightly inconvenient footnote to the food discussion.

Viewers bring their own advertising memories. Several return to Sainsbury's Christmas-truce advert as their benchmark, while others nominate Norton for James Bond. The Barbour section offers a different familiar face, or rather muzzle: Gromit, faced with another Wallace invention.

Across the channel, subscribers were unchanged over the week, while daily viewing is running at less than half its usual level. Reasoned's weekly views were a little above Punter's Politics, though both have slower daily viewing than usual. The strongest immediate momentum now belongs to Reasoned's Russell Brand sentencing update and a civil-service fraud report. Among the festive departures, though, Dobbs's Santa review remains the week's biggest new draw.

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What viewers say

No one will ever beat Sainsbury’s and the war truce Christmas advert.
Loved that one.
@haleyjordan9007See it on YouTube
James Norton for James Bond please😁
@carolinecalvert401See it on YouTube
Very good but retailers will have to do something very special to ever come close to sainsbury's "1914" Christmas ad.
@matt01506See it on YouTube

3 more comments

And they have one of the BEST actors! James norton!
@denise4487See it on YouTube
M&S, Lidl & Aldi, all 3 have brilliant adverts.
@kathrynkelman5334See it on YouTube
It's like a small piece of the care free 1990's returned just for a small but much welcomed appearance. And I have never said a positive comment for so long. But I applaud this company M&S well done.
@PsytanicASee it on YouTube

Public comments from the video's page on YouTube