"I know if I was to speak to a professional fishmongerhe would kill himself laughing..."
Sir Alan Sugar's back on his insatiable quest for another apprentice, and 16 brand new well-educated people (most with common sense bypasses) have arrived to participate in big Al's "12-week job interview". You don't fix what isn't broken, so this opener was the same Apprentice we know and love, with the only twist being how quickly Sir Alan dropped the candidates into the deep end...
The 16 were immediately divided into two teams of boys and girls, and each given a van of fish with a wholesale value of £600. After deciding their team names (something that always seems to encourage more debate and loss of time than the actual task, it seems), the girls ("Alpha") and the boys ("Renaissance") set up separate market stalls in Islington. They had to identify their fishy produce using photos, settle on reasonable prices based on a wholesale cost list, and offload the seafood to make a profit. Simple, no?
Alex Wotherspoon, 24, was the team leader of the boys, a Regional Sales Manager who didn't do too badly really. He certainly managed to delegate effectively enough, and I could relate to his disdain as other teammates let the side down. But, truth is -- whoever was put in charge of identifying the fish and pricing them had the most difficult task. Step forward fish-identifier Raef Bjayou, a smart-mouthed 27-year-old entrepreneur, and Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, 23, a toffee-nosed barrister and property developer. Surely the board room awaited?
Claire Young, 28, was the team leader of the girls, a burly Senior Retail Buyer who didn't make much of an impression during the programme itself. But she must have done something right, as the girls' prices were more accurate and they managed to secure the best pitch at the market.
Raef incorrectly labelled three boxes of fish, Nicholas thought they should be charging £4.90 per lobster (instead of £4.90 per pound of lobster), losing the boys £10 every time they sold one. Towards the end of the trading day, both teams tried to offload their remaining stock by selling it to local businesses. The boys wound up in a jewellers and a solicitor's office (wha--?), where Michael Sophocoles, a 25-year-old telesales executive, decided to sell £130 worth of stock for a measly £50! Hmmm.
As if you couldn't guess, the boys were informed at the board room debrief that they had lost the task – after only making £32.69 profit. The girls hadn't fared much better, making just £153.98 profit – and most of that came from the last-minute offload to a local businessman. But, "a win's a win" as Sir Alan put it – so the girls were driven back to their luxury pad to eat a meal cooked by Jean Christophe Novelli. Oooh. Would the boys have got Nigella?
Team leader Alex brought Raef and Nicholas back into the board room with him the next morning – as it was past Sir Al's bedtime by now. That actually worked quite well for the show, as the boys could experience a night in their luxury home and had to chew over things in their minds. And plan their strategy to save themselves under the bearded glare of Sir Alan.
Sir Alan tore into the boys' poor performance selling the fish, but Alex's bewildered nice-guy nature seemed to hold him in good stead. And Sir Alan often gives the benefit of the doubt to team leaders, particularly one who had to manage a team of very competitive strangers. Raef came across as a motormouthed, petulant pain in the arse (the new Sayid?), while Nicholas did himself no favours by just attacking Alex's leadership with bizarre issues of a "cultural division".
I don't think Sir Alan liked Nicholas' snooty demeanour and silly reasoning -- but whatever possessed Nicholas to tell former Spurs chairman Sir Alan that "I find it very difficult to have conversations about… football"? Verbal suicide.
So it was bye-bye barrister, as posh-boy Nicholas de Lacy-Brown was the first candidate to be fired. And it's particularly galling to be kicked out in the first week, isn't it? "I've been made a scapegoat", Nicholas moaned as he headed to his taxi. And the thing is, as none of the boys realized a sub-£5 lobster is ridiculously cheap, I do think that Nicholas was lumbered with a key role none of the boys would have excelled at. Which doesn't bode well for their group!
The search for Sir Alan's new apprentice continues...
26 March 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm
