There are two Irish contestants on the latest series of Alan Sugar’s The Apprentice (BBC One, Thursday, 9pm), but neither receives much screen time in an opening episode taking place in snowy Austria. Aoibheann Walsh, who is from Donegal, and Jordan Dargan, a Dubliner, are among the 18 candidates tasked with flogging mountaineering excursions to ski enthusiasts in Innsbruck – but amid an avalanche of bragging and banter from the other candidates they don’t get a look-in.
This isn’t the disaster it might seem. On the evidence of previous seasons, their early-doors anonymity might stand to them. On The Apprentice, the more of the camera you hog initially the greater the likelihood of your coming unstuck before the final and missing out on Sugar’s £250,000 investment.
The BBC version of The Apprentice has been on the airwaves so long – it debuted in 2005 – that it is easily forgotten that it started life as a spin-off of the Donald Trump hit of the same name. Trump has gone on to bigger things. Sugar, meanwhile, remained in situ in his fake “boardroom” – in reality a BBC studio at an industrial estate in north Acton, across the road from a B&Q – waving a stubby finger at people.
The only major upgrade is that he seems to have expanded his pool of joke writers and this year is firing off zingers faster than Trump is threatening to break international law. “I was in the mug business once … I bought Spurs,” he says, to skittish laughter. He adds that the rules of the corporate world have changed and that now it’s all about being the first to recognise an opportunity. “I’m looking for a Bezos rather than a bozo. Movers and shakers, not schmoozers and fakers.”
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As ever, the fun with The Apprentice is in watching the competitors make ridiculous boasts and then fall flat on their faces. Sadly, the bragging is now so over the top – “my level of competitiveness is disgusting … I’m the equivalent of a tank” one entrant says – that it’s hard not to suspect the competitors aren’t in on the joke at some level. They’ve watched The Apprentice – they know we love to laugh at their inane boasts as they stride through central London, wheelie cases in tow. Like any good business-person, they’re giving the public what it wants.
After a day of mucking about in Innsbruck there’s the inevitable face-off in the boardroom, where Sugar eliminates Emma, a gift-shop owner. She is by no means the least competent candidate, but she doesn’t beat her chest with sufficient enthusiasm and so, Sugar concludes, is lacking in fighting spirit. She’s gone – but, judging by this listless return, you have to wonder for how much longer The Apprentice can slog before it’s handed its P45.
