This article was originally published in The Courier on 25th October 2014.
The
Apprentice: Wednesday, BBC
One
Paul
Whitelaw
Despite being in its tenth year, it's
clear that most Apprentice candidates have never seen The
Apprentice before in their lives. How else to explain their
complete inability to learn from the blunders of previous hopefuls?
Or is it simply that anyone foolish
enough to apply for The Apprentice in the first place is so
tragically lacking in self-awareness, they can't appreciate it in the
same way as the rest of us? They take it seriously. That's their
tragedy.
Funnier than most actual sitcoms, The
Apprentice is essentially a comedy, edited and manipulated for
maximum farce. Though it may initially have maintained some thin
pretence of having anything to do with serious business practice, the
makers realised years ago that no one, apart from the grasping
candidates themselves, viewed it as anything other than a
cringe-inducing showcase for eminently mockable buffoons.
We watch it because, when viewed in
light of these narcissistic bozos, it makes us feel better about
ourselves as human beings. We're all idiotic in our own way, of
course, but at least we're not as hopeless as these people.
Is it cruel? Not really. Unlike The
X Factor, where those lined up for mockery are all too often
harmless and vulnerable, The Apprentice carefully selects a
group of risible fools who basically deserve to be mocked. They have
no one to blame but themselves.
Take James, a stand-out character so
far on account of his mouthy, arrogant, pea-brained pronouncements
and uncanny resemblance to woman-fearing humour vacuum Dapper Laughs
(if you don't know who that is, then I urge you to remain oblivious).
James is a typical Apprentice contestant in that he does
everything a competent candidate – and such anomalies do exist –
shouldn't. Mistakenly overconfident, he never listens to instructions
due to an aggressive belief in his own verbal diarrhoea.
Last week he committed the cardinal
sin of, while pleading for his life in the boardroom, obsequiously
comparing himself to Lord Sugar. James! Don't you know that this is
one of Sugar's pet peeves? Evidently not. James is oblivious. Sugar
eventually told him to shut up. “Definitely, Lord Sugar,” he
replied. What a twit.
Of course, one of the show's most
consistently comical participants is Sugar himself. The deference the
candidates pay towards this brogue-faced millionaire barrow boy is
hilarious, as are, for entirely the wrong reasons, the belligerent
prune's own attempts at humour. His scripted quips get more
excruciating by the year. I'm certain his writers are giving him any
old gibberish for a backstage bet now. “Never mind Aloe Vera, looks
like it's more of a case of goodbye Sarah.” I mean, I ask you.
As for the rest of the contestants,
only a few stand out at this stage. Roisin is James' archetypal
opposite in that she's clearly a capable contender, while Sarah
Millican soundalike Katie appears to be this year's token 'nice one'.
Whenever she talked about profits and margins during the most recent
task, she sounded like a child consulting My First Business Kit from
Mattel.
Elsewhere there's Daniel, who clearly
thinks he's Don Draper. He looks more like Fred Flintstone summoned
for court. Mark is a constipated Ben Affleck, or, if you prefer, a
wrestler who's turned up at the wrong Christening, while Steven is
already shaping up to be one of the most overbearingly delusional
contestants in Apprentice history.
Even after ten years of unchanging
formula, I do so love this ridiculous programme.
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