<b>Exclusive
By Mark Spencer

The John Lewis Man on the Moon Christmas advert was only released at the last minute because the company was forced to scrap its preferred film about a village idiot, the Suffolk Gazette can reveal.</b>

Veteran comedian Ronnie Corbett had been hired to play a village idiot from Suffolk who was desperately lonely because no one bothered to talk to him.

He was ridiculed by the people of Alderton because he kept falling backwards off garden walls, where he liked to sit all day trying to engage them in conversation.

<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/village-idiot1.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/village-idiot1.jpg" alt="village-idiot" width="480" height="360" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2035" /></a></center><center><i>The John Lewis Suffolk village idiot</center></i><br><br>

The film showed one little girl felt sorry for the village idiot, and desperately wanted to do something to help him.

Finally, in a tear-jerking end to the advert, she manages to buy him a camping chair in time for Christmas so he can sit safely by the side of the road without falling off walls.

John Lewis bosses, who have celebrated years of success with their Christmas adverts, felt sure they were on to another seasonal hit.

But when they showed the film to a focus group of customers at their Ipswich store, they were told the plot was too far-fetched because no one is ever nice to a village idiot.

Instead, marketing execs hastily put together a more believable story about a little old man living on the moon who gets sent a telescope hung from a helium balloon by a young girl on earth.

A John Lewis source said: "Suffolk is famous for its village idiots and we thought a story about one of them being helped by a little girl would be heart-warming.

"We admit we got it wrong, so we pulled it and quickly wrote a new script about a bloke living on the moon."

The Suffolk Gazette tried to get a comment from a village idiot in Freston, but he ran away.

* * * *

Like The Suffolk Gazette on Facebook now! <iframe style="border: none; overflow: hidden; height: 21px;" src="//www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsuffolkgazette&amp;width&amp;layout=button_count&amp;action=like&amp;show_faces=false&amp;share=true&amp;height=21" width="300" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

<a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/buy-us-a-beer/">Please support our running costs by clicking here and buying us a beer!</a>

<a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/plugins/oiopub-direct/purchase.php" target="_blank">Advertise on the Suffolk Gazette - click here for (very cheap) rates</a>