Marvel star Benedict Cumberbatch and Crown actor Olivia Colman join celebs for Choose Love Christmas advert

Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman have joined a list of “confused” celebrities to feature in a Christmas advert for a charity.

The video, released ahead of the 2022 opening of the Choose Love shop, features famous faces such as Nicola Coughlan on Derry Girls fame, comedian Nish Kumar, Vick Hope, Deborah Frances-White, and Aiysha Hart.

The shop, located on London’s Carnaby Street, sells essential supplies and life-changing interventions for refugees and displaced people around the world.

In the clip, Hassan Akkad, filmmaker and creative director at Choose Love, introduces the public to the concept of the store and its “not so helpful” employees.

Nicola Coughlan uses the store cupboard as a green room. Choose Love

“Every Christmas we take a few celebrities who haven’t been booked for a panto or a Christmas special and give them something useful to do,” he says.

Cumberbatch is seen struggling with the job of being a cashier and attempting to open a “portal to the multiverse” – a nod to his iconic Dr Strange role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Colman is left confused by the technology of the online store, and Coughlan uses the store cupboard as a green room.

Dawn O’Porter, co-founder and long-term supporter of the Choose Love Shop said: “The Choose Love Shop is now a staple of the festive period.

“Especially now, while we’re all reading the newspapers every day and wondering what we can do to help, buying from the Choose Love Shop offers people something that can make a real, tangible difference.”

The Choose Love shop first opened in 2015 and offers Christmas shoppers the chance to “shop ‘til you drop and leave with nothing”.

Everything shoppers buy – from hot food to emergency housing and more – is given to refugees and asylum seekers, and can be bought in the name of a loved one for a Christmas gift.

Previous famous “employees” have included Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Carey Mulligan, a mannequin cameo from Noel Fielding, and Lena Heady who served coffee to queuing customers.

According to Choose Love, this year the refugee crisis has reached new records, with more than 100 million people estimated to be displaced worldwide.

The charity has added new items to help address some of these crises such as Disability Support, Heating Fuel, and Evacuations.

All funds raised through the shop go to supporting displaced people from all over the world, including Afghanistan and Syria, as well as supporting the Ukraine Emergency Response, which the charity began earlier this year, now working with more than 70 organisations to help the people of Ukraine.

The Choose Love Shop opens on November 3 until December 24, and is located at 15-17 Foubert’s Place, in central London.