The Apprentice 2019, episode 1 review: greedy, vindictive, arrogant – it's business as usual on The Apprentice
“You might not believe it, judging by my youthful exterior, but this is the 15th year we’ve been in this boardroom,” said a craggy-looking Lord Sugar, at the outset of another series of The Apprentice (BBC One). Whatever about the l6 candidates lined up in front of him – some looking like they were barely out of nappies 15 years ago – just watching made me feel old.
Back then, I wrote in this newspaper about a sofa-chewing new format being imported from America, in which some comb-overed businessman called Donald Trump had made a splash. Well, Sir Alan is now Lord Sugar and one or two former candidates are household names. But apart from tweaks, the essentials haven’t changed much. Only one thing has remained wholly unaltered over the years, and that’s the reliably astonishing blend of callowness, greed, arrogance and stupidity that is the hallmark of many of the candidates.
On first view this series won’t be any different in that respect. What a bunch. (In Lord Sugar’s words: “moaning Minnies, big-time Charlies, half-pint Harrys.”) As ever some were keen to prove it from the get-go, whether in risible imperiousness (“I have such extravagant tastes, a million would not be enough. I need billions,” sneered one) or via dubious role-model choices (“‘He who dares wins’ is what Del Boy always says, innit,” said another).
That was before they set foot on the plane that jetted them off to Cape Town for an exotic opening task organising a tour to carve a slice of South Africa’s booming tourism industry. The “boys” team chose to do a safari, the “girls” a wine-tasting tour.
Can you imagine the chaos that followed? Absolutely you can, it’s more or less the same every year. The cacophony of competing voices was so loud, nobody really stood out. Except perhaps librarian Lottie for a self-proclaimed “vindictive”-ness that may well see her dispatched by rivals early in the process.
In the boardroom, it was a close-run thing: the boys losing largely for not pressurising their benighted clients into buying enough cuddly toys in the gift shop. Team leader Lewis looked like a deer caught in headlights until eventually he exploded, earning an anger-management ticking off from Lord Sugar. But not a sacking. (Sales-less Shahin was the first out.) Lord Sugar must like Lewis’s business plan a lot – at least, that’s what overfamiliarity with the show would suggest. Roll on the next 11 weeks.
