BY ‘ECK! MEL’S BACK AS FACE OF BODDIES
... AND AT 46 SHE HARDLY LOOKS A DAY OLDER
MELANIE Sykes has resumed her most famous role as a Boddingtons girl - in an hilarious new advert for the beer company.
The Mossley-born model first found fame after her starring role in a Boddies ad back in the ‘90s, when it was then known as the “Cream of Manchester”.
Now, 21 years later, she has been lured back to promote the beer as it plans a major new campaign to get the beer back on people’s lips.
The new advert sees Melanie on a hillside, filmed on the Sussex Downs – but in the classic style of those 90s Cream of Manchester ads, not all is as it seems.
Melanie told the M.E.N.: “They called me at the end of last year and asked me if I’d be interested in doing another commercial, as they hadn’t given it any love for a little while. For me, my relationship with Boddies has never ended. There isn’t a day that goes by when someone doesn’t mention it to me in all those 21 years since the first campaign. I’ve got very fond memories of the brand.”
The beer is now brewed in South Wales, after the original Strangeways Brewery was closed down back in 2004.
But while Melanie is delighted to be back on board as face of the new ad campaign, she admits she’s never been much of a beer drinker.
She says: “I don’t drink at all, but my father has always loved a pint of Boddingtons, so it’s been in my life before the commercial. My family were all really excited for me. They were such brilliant, fun adverts the first time, so of course everyone is so excited about them coming back.”
When Melanie first mentioned her return to Boddies on her social media, she was flooded with comments from fans excited by the news.
She says: “I couldn’t believe the reaction – people are so massively supportive.
“I suppose everyone just loved those original adverts, and the 90s, so much and it’s an exercise in nostalgia. Everyone’s dead excited.”
While it might be 21 years since Melanie’s last Boddies ad – where she popped her head out of an ice cream van with a pint of bitter instead of a cone to an athlete to say ‘Do you want a flake in that love?’ she’s remarkably unchanged.
Although Melanie, 46, doesn’t seem to think so.
She says: “I’m 21 years older so I don’t look the same, I don’t really think about it to be honest, I’m mixed race, I think genetically that helps, I take care of myself, I eat well I exercise, I have bloody good facials, I’ve just taken care of myself.”