Elvis Costello voices ad for new Linda McCartney vegetarian food range

Elvis Costello has joined forces with Sir Paul McCartney to launch a campaign backing a new vegetarian range from the Linda McCartney Foods brand.

Costello has provided the voiceover to an animated film which features a host of “psychedelic characters” and a soundtrack of Sir Paul singing Heart of the Country, a song he wrote with his late wife Linda, in 1971.

Costello, who first collaborated with McCartney 25 years ago, has been a vegetarian since the early 1980s. He said: “Linda always talked well and made it seem that you wouldn’t be joining a secret weird society by being vegetarian.”

The Linda McCartney company hopes to benefit from the Tesco “horse meat” scandal and the brand’s first television advert since Linda’s death from cancer in 1988 will support a new range of chilled meat-free foods.

The animated film, produced by the team behind the Gorillaz videos, shows an animated Linda, carrying her camera, walking alongside a host of animals and cooking for them. It has already been leaked to YouTube.

A spokesman said: “This is the first time in 15 years that the brand has done TV advertising. The animation transports viewers into a fairy-tale world where characters including Horse boy, Napoleon Dog and Ballerina Cat join the McCartney Family in a musical fanfare that culminates with a woodland feast.”