DLA Piper lawyers have given their team leader a rousing send-off in a lockdown music video guaranteed to make hearts swell and, at certain points, ears twinge.

Although the video’s opening messages - 'Goodbye Tim' and 'Farewell Tim' - have slightly unfortunate connotations in a pandemic, employment partner Tim Marshall is absolutely fine, and also still at the firm. He has merely stepped down as Joint Global Head of DLA Piper's employment practice.

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His colleagues at DLA Piper paid tribute to Marshall with a rendition of 'So Long, Farewell' from The Sound Of Music, putting to shame the cover of 'Imagine' which celebrities warbled after spending two days indoors.

A lawyer from the UK opens the show by singing, "So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good night" in a faultless baritone while sporting black tie and his OBE, before handing over to a continental colleague who gets an A for effort. 

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The next participant takes things up a few hundred notches by rattling off an instrumental on her accordion.

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Then it gets delightfully 'Allo 'Allo as a pair of gentlemen doff their hats and bid, "Adieu, adieu, to yeu and yeu and yeu", before a third man resembling the mad hatter at a rave shouts in front of a bush.

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An impressive number of DLA Piper staff were able to pull together Roaring 20s costumes while in lockdown. Some even found Great Gatsby-esque backdrops lying about their house.

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And booze. Booze is well-represented. Rightly so, given its increased prominence in the lives of many of us stuck at home.

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The requirement for remote submissions meant stitching the song together must have been an arduous task, but at least the editor had fun pairing the debonair Brit tooting on his clarinet with a bloke from abroad necking champagne in front of a Man U shirt.

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Despite the ear-bleeding contributions of a few of the lawyers, the tribute ends with a note-perfect reference to the reality of working life in 2020: that we're only visible from the chest up (unless we get it wrong).

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A DLA spokesperson said, “Tim has had a change of role at the firm, and seeing as they couldn’t get together in person to thank him for his eight years as International Group Head, his colleagues thought they would do the next best thing and give him the gift of song".

"We apologise unreservedly if any RollOnFriday readers’ eyes or ears were damaged in the viewing of this video, but remain quietly proud of the team’s fortitude, ingenuity and sheer sartorial flair in celebrating with Tim during this lockdown period”. Good on them.