Glamorous Jane Asher opens 500th Poundland store in Birmingham
People begin to assemble around the doors of Birmingham's newest store. Shoppers jostle with their phone-cameras while a man in a gold suit challenges the Honey Monster to do a cartwheel in front of the growing audience.
But they both know who the crowds are really there to see. And up steps Jane Asher, immaculately dressed in a pristine cream suit, steps up to cut the ribbon – on Britain's 500th Poundland.
Five years ago, the idea that this standard bearer for middle-class domesticity would turn up to open a branch of this low-budget retailer would have surely seemed out of the question.
But not only is the actress-turned-purveyor of high-class-baking here to open the discount-chain's latest outlet, she is also promoting her new cookware range which will go on sale at the retailer next year.
Does Asher's endorsement finally mark a watershed moment for the Black Country-based retailer, where nothing costs more than £1?
She certainly believes so. The actress, who made her name alongside Michael Caine in Alfie, says she has long been a Poundland shopper.
"I know Poundland, I shop there, like most people, towards Christmas, where I will pick up bits and pieces.
"I hate that awful expression 'yummy mummies', but my step-daughter who has two children, regularly shops at Poundland.
"The notion that it's just popular with people who have no money, or the downtrodden, is simply not true.
"Everybody needs to be sensible with their money, and that it is true across the social classes."
Poundland chief executive Jim McCarthy points out that 22 per cent of the chain's shoppers come from the higher income groups, known as AB in marketing terms, and says the tough economic climate of the last five years has played a crucial role in bringing the retailer into the mainstream.
The latest expansion programme will see a total of 21 new Poundland stores open over a five-week period, and Mr McCarthy says the company has identified 1,000 more sites with the potential of supporting another Poundland.
The chain was founded in 1990, when former Bilston market traders Keith and Steve Smith opened a pilot store in Burton-upon-Trent. At the time, many landlords were reluctant to grant them a lease, fearing they would undercut all the neighbouring stores.
But after a tentative start, the company has grown into a high street staple, more than doubling the number of stores over the last three years, and employing more than 12,000 people – including several hundred at Poundland's head offices and distribution site in Willenhall and its second warehouse site in nearby Bilston.
"We have had five years of recession, and a consequence of that is that people have been looking to make their money go further," says Mr McCarthy.
But given that all the indicators suggest the economy is finally showing signs of life, is there not a risk that people will begin turning away from Poundland, just when all its new stores are coming on-stream?
"I don't think so, I think the changes that we have seen will prove sticky. People have become used to saving money, and they are proud that they are saving money.
"When the first Poundland opened in 1990, we didn't have Aldi or Lidl, Primark was a store that there were very few of, so people are far more aware of the need to shop around for the best deal, and there are also the internet comparison sites."
Even so, Asher does say that lending her name to the new Poundland baking range was not something she did lightly.
She says she was initially approached by a company she works with, which is also a supplier to Poundland, and says she thought long and hard before agreeing to anything.
"I'm very lucky in that I have a name that people trust, and I never stick my name on something unless I either use it regularly, or have designed it myself," she says. But when I looked into it, I thought it was a really good idea. I feel it's a way of helping people to bake who haven't done so in the past."
