Jemima Khan and Jeremy Clarkson weren’t the only well-loved British brands on the defensive thanks to Twitter this week. Biscuit king McVitie’s was at the centre of some online argy-bargy over the advert for its Medley bars.

Darren Foreman is a British musician and ‘human beatbox’ who performs under the name Beardyman. If you’re not down with the whole beatboxing thing, it basically means imitating the sound of drum beats and record-scratching in a way that might sound a bit silly here but is actually implausibly cool to see in the flesh.

Four years ago, Foreman put a video on YouTube of him creating one of his trademark beats in the style of a TV chef filming a recipe. Now the new Medley ad features something similar. Very similar, in fact angering Twitterati who’ve dubbed the row ‘Hobrobs’.

“McVitie’s can confirm that it is aware of the Twitter activity,” the company told Blogof. “As we are currently looking into this it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

Fans of the beatboxer claim their man turned down an approach from UB to do the ad himself. You can make up your own mind by searching for Beardyman on YouTube.

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