HOLLYWOOD legend Robert De Niro has swapped the mean streets of New York for the backstreets of Bolton in a much-anticipated advert for local bakers Warburtons.

The commercial premieres on ITV1 this Friday during Gogglebox but the Bolton News has obtained sneak preview photographs.

Jonathan Warburton, chairman of Warburtons, said: “We’re proud of our Bolton roots and it was great to bring a big star like Robert De Niro here to star in our brand-new ad. As an iconic New Yorker, Robert De Niro knows his way around a bagel so it’s great to have his seal of approval."

The Raging Bull and Taxi Driver double Oscar winner actually travelled to the company's Hereford Street HQ in Bolton for filming earlier this year

He said: “It was a pleasure to fly to the UK to film this ad with the Warburtons family, and star alongside Jonathan. Getting into the bagel business has been great fun, and I hope everyone enjoys the final cut.”

Not surprsingly, the commercial, which is titled GoodBagels, has De Niro starring as a mafia boss who heads over from New York to Bolton in order confront the good fella Jonathan Warburton.

Bursting into his office, they paint a picture of a world where De Niro passes off the new Warburtons bagels as his own. In a series of quick edits, De Niro and his team are seen taping up a security guard in order to steal the bagels and fill supermarket shelves with the newly labelled ‘GoodBagels’.

Quickly cutting back to the office scene, Jonathan Warburton mistakes this threat as storytelling for a new film, similar to the pitches made in previous commercials by Sylvester Stallone, Peter Kay, and of course The Muppets.

Asking ‘how does it end?’ De Niro responds in his typical sinister style, ‘not well’.

Mr Warburton said: "We had a lot of fun filming at Warburtons HQ and showing that Bolton really is the home of the best bagels."

The latest campaign marks the launch of Warburtons new cinnamon and raisin and plain bagels