Christmas is all about the indulgences, isn’t it?
The extra pig in the blanket, the between course mince pie, the morning alcoholic apéritif, the after-dinner chocolates and if past a certain hour then it’s all about passing the mint filled squares around. The After Eight, it could be argued, is an iconic British confectionery, although prominent in supermarkets all year round the After Eight rectangles find themselves in baskets and trolleys a little more frequently in the run up to that date at the end of December.
After Eights’ increased popularity and prominence allows CommunityAd to link tediously but tastily to a famous face of Camberley.
Andy Quin amongst a lifetime of achievements as a musician and composer provided the piano playing skills for the soundtrack of an After Eight advertisement. Yes, this was in the nineties, the golden era of chocolate advertisement where a small minty chocolate could attract not only the musical gifts of Andy Quin but a cast worthy of a blockbuster. The wordsmith Stephen Fry provides most of the narrative whilst supermodel Naomi Campbell provides aesthetic charm and a host of other famous faces that aimed to wow viewers. As well as Fry and Campbell the other guests at the dinner table passing the After Eights round were Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Bobby Moore.
FACT CHECK UK might be alarmed by that last sentence but of course the famous faces were featured via some primitive 1999 CGI. The whole advert is stitched together by the piano playing of Andy Quin although if you were to watch the ad on YouTube you’d think he looks a lot like Liberace as again CGI implies the elaborate celeb had beaten the grave to play piano at Stephen Fry’s ultimate dinner party.
The After Eight as delicious as they are have acted purely as a gateway for CommunityAd to bring your attention to the phenomenal talent that is Andy Quin. He was just four years old when he first ran his little fingers across the keys of a piano, however, unlike many ‘child prodigies’ he was not introduced to the instrument by his parents. Although both music lovers they were not musicians and did not own a piano. It was on regular visits to his aunt that he would slip into the ‘front room’ to play her piano (whilst his parents were chatting), that his talent was first discovered. His parents worked brutally hard to afford their own lessons and by the age of ten Andy was stunning local audiences with his gift.
When Andy was in concert he was heard by general manager of the Hutchinson Cinema Group who invited Andy to play both piano and organ to accompany screenings of silent movies, a role at which he thrived. The improvisation and intelligence to gauge a scene is a rare gift and Andy has made a career off the back of that gift.
Andy Quin’s screen credits are far from exclusive to the After Eight advert. He has written and recorded music for over thirty years ranging from tracks on Hollywood movies such as Definitely Maybe and Flash of Genius through TV shows such as Better Call Saul, Boardwalk Empire, Marple, Coronation Street, It Shouldn’t Happen To and Holby City, to many of the UK’s best known adverts (brands such as Lynx, Persil, Pedigree Chum). He has well over a thousand published works broadcast globally and is probably one of the most versatile, prolific and successful production music composers in the world.