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The Apprentice - Week 9
15/05/08
14/05/08
08/05/08
07/05/08
07/05/08
01/05/08
21 May 2008
22:19:00 o'clock BST
“Don't start telling me you're just like me”, barks Sir Alan Sugar, the 'famously hard-to-please' (read: picky) Amstrad boss, at the beginning of every Apprentice episode. “No one's like me. I am unique”, he confirms. “Oh yeah, apart from Michael Sophocles, who reminds me of what I was like when I was his age. He's like me.” Come on everyone – this must be the only reason why the Bambi-eyed bullshitter is still in the running for that six-figure salary wiping down the tables in Brentwood House canteen. But will this be the week of his long-overdue firing? Read on to find out...
It's early morning in the Apprentice house and everyone is fast asleep, but that doesn't prevent Frances The PA from getting on the blower. “Sir Alan would like you to meet him at the National Theatre”, she whispers, her voice tainted by sadness. Alas, poor Frances. If only she was a good enough actress to tread the boards at the National, bringing the works of Pinter to life with a little help from the likes of Vanessa Redgrave and Ian McKellen, instead of sitting in an overheated studio being asked to do yet another take of “You can go into the boardroom now” because she keeps fluffing her one line. Poor, snooty, monotone Frances, who is replaced every series. When WILL her big break come?
An hour later, seven bleary-eyed businessprats line up on the South Bank. “What they do here is put on plays”, says Sherlock Holmes, gesturing at the theatre dismissively. Right. So what are we doing here, then, Sir Alan? “This task is about you telling a story also, by way of a television advert”, he continues. So putting on an award-winning production at a world-renowned playhouse is the same as asking Nadine Baggott to talk about her pentapeptides, is it? I'm no authority on the world of advertising, but I doubt Alan Bennett was drafted in to write the commercials for Charmin.
This week, the two teams have to devise a campaign for their own brand of tissues. This involves filming a TV commercial, and designing a press ad too. They'll then have to pitch their ideas to a selection of advertising bigwigs, who have agreed to take time out from telling us to eat yogurts “more positively” or imploring us to discuss our constipation over lunch with glamorous friends.
“The general mood is one of gaiety and excitement a the prospect of directing our own little feature”, smiles Renaissance project manager Raef, who once knew a woman who sold Cornettos in the Odeon and therefore thinks that he's the right person to bring a touch of Kenneth Branagh to a 30-second promo about snotrags. Michael is equally keen, as he was part of a drama company at Edinburgh University - which, as we all know, is not what it was. (Note to Michael: putting a traffic cone on your head and being sick in the doorway of Jenners does not constitute street theatre.)
But how to advertise such a mundane household product? Michael thinks he has the answer. “My idea is the start of a beautiful relationship revolving around a tissue”, he smiles, clearly remembering all the times he's asked somebody out and they've cried with laughter. Claire, meanwhile, comes up with the snappy brand name 'I Love My Tissues'. Poor Claire. They're her only friend.
While she and Helene head off to design the packaging, Raef and Michael work on the TV promo. After selecting their filming location (the kind of school where the curriculum features gymkhana lessons for all the girls, and the boys are forced to wear shorts all year round, even when it's snowing), Raef comes up with the brilliant idea of paying a celebrity to appear in their advert.
However, instead of casting somebody one might associate with tissues, such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Leslie Grantham, Raef comes up with the bright idea of hiring Siân Lloyd - ITV's face of thunder.
Siân is an interesting choice, I think, especially as I wouldn't be surprised if I read on Wikipedia that she was born without tearducts. And Nick Hewer is equally unimpressed. “The point of hiring a celebrity is that you hire her for what she's best known as”, he sneers. “Siân Lloyd is a weathergirl”, he confirms, for the benefit of people viewing in non-ITV households. Lloyd, meanwhile, finds the idea that she'll bring a “wholesome” element to their campaign hilarious. “If they'd Googled me they'd have realised that I'm single, I'm not a mother, and I haven't really done any work with children”, she smiles, before accepting a lump sum to be filmed playing the part of a parent dropping her son off at school.
“What we wanted is a non-woody, Di Caprio-esque type way of acting, and I think we've got that on the bench scene”, says Raef, speaking of the final shot in which a small boy cheers up a crying girl by offering her an 'I Love My Tissues' (see – just doesn't work, does it?). “Everything is done through gestures”, he smiles. Canyou imagine what gesture I'm making at the screen, Raef? Especially at the bit where you and Michael practically hold hands while cooing that each other is the next Almodovar or Fellini? If this carries on much longer, I'm going to have to start watching The Apprentice accompanied by the kitchen basin. Bleurgh.
One session in the editing suite later, and Helene and Claire are unimpressed. Siân Lloyd's cameo is over in the blink of an eye – and that's the only good thing about it. The worst bit is that you barely get to see the actual product. Clang! “I wouldn't show it to my family”, moans Claire, “Let alone the head of the biggest advertising agency in the UK.”
Meanwhile, Team Alpha start brainstorming names for their brand. Lee suggests 'Snot', because it's “funky”. “I wouldn't want a packet of Snot in my handbag”, Lucinda points out, before suggesting the name 'Atishu'. And although she wins a few points for the name, she loses several thousand with team leader Alex for her idea of using a gay couple to promote them. “If I had that box of tissues, Lee would come to my house and be like, 'Isn't that the box of tissues off the gay advert?'”, Alex points out. Tsk, Alex! You are missing the point. Real men, gay or straight, have no need for tissues! We dry our eyes on fibreglass and feral wolves. We're not all preening nancy boys like you, y'know.
Lucinda is rewarded for her wonky attempts at “ideation” (not my word, I promise) by being dispatched to find a family home where they can film their ad. And she's jolly cross about it too. That evening, when she arrives at the casting studio, she spends the first two hours berating Lee and Alex – which leaves them with little time to audition various hams. “There's nothing that is exciting or dynamic or, dare I say, vaguely fascinating about what we've got”, she snips, seemingly in the belief that they've been asked to bring back Prime Suspect and not cobble together footage of a few part-time thespians blowing their noses.
Her tantrum continues into the next day. Upon being presented with the final tissue box designs, she dismisses them as “quite repulsive”. She also has a good old bitch about her team leader. “It's a real shame, because Alex is a lovely guy, but he's useless”, she frowns. “He's actually worse than useless.” Which, when put through one of Sir Alan's patented Amstrad truth translators, comes out as “I want to lead! I WANT TO BE THE LEADER! ME ME ME! I DO! I'M WEARING THE TEAM LEADER BERET!”
In the car it gets even worse, as Alex and Lucinda embark upon the most inarticulate slanging match of the series so far. “I don't like the boxing, I don't like the colours and I don't like the pictures”, Lucinda sniffs. “We're trying to get across the message that... y'know, family, blankets, comfortable...” Alex retorts, before they launch into a row about people sitting on a settee, or something else that I fail to follow. Lucinda ends up wagging her finger and going “Naughty, naughty, naughty”. Perhaps Alex isn't allowed on the settee because he's not housetrained? Is that it?
Lee swears at Lucinda. Lucinda swears back at Lee. Lucinda wins, I think. But, when Alex finally manages to calm her down, they've spent so much time bickering that there's barely any time left in the programme for footage of their shoot to be included. All we see is something that resembles an opening scene from Casualty circa 1990, way back when all its stories revolved around little girls with head colds, and not acid-powered spaceships crashing into shopping centres and melting hundreds of people's faces in a variety of new and exciting ways.
The next day, both teams head to ad agency Ogilvy. Here, they must give their presentations to an audience comprising three hateful executives; a variety of consumers who are there for the free cups of squash and a sit down; and you-know-who. Renaissance goes first, with Claire leading the pitch. Despite a few tortured analogies about tissues being like politicians (a guarded reference to that time when a hooded youth coughed phlegm onto David Cameron, perhaps), she does a fairly decent job. It's almost a shame, then, that their advert is pretty rubbish. “Has Siân Lloyd abducted a child?” asks one confused old dear at the back. “Is that why he's crying? Is that what's happening?”
Lee then proves that, while he's good at making stupid noises, he does not share Claire's gift of the gab. As Alpha's pitch was reworded and reworded again during the few short minutes before they went in, Lee is over-reliant on his notes and keeps coming out with gems such as “We have aimed our product at a female genre”. The ad execs check their watches. Margaret Mountford concentrates on her Sudoku.
Their advert, since you ask, is unspeakably awful. Absolutely agonising. While watching it, I almost reach for the Bostik so I can seal my eyes shut forever. Even Big Grey Al can't keep his composure, and ends up with his hand over his mouth. That's how bad it is.
In the boardroom, Sir Alan plays the ads back to the teams. Michael and Claire sit and guffaw at Team Alpha's entry, as Alex squirms. “My initial reaction towards their telly ad is that it lacks any kind of subtlety”, opposite team leader Raef declares. “I understand that adverts need to make clear what they're advertising”, he states, before sitting back in his chair, awaiting a trip to Harvey Nicks courtesy of Sugar's largesse.
Or not.
“You made the biggest error going”, Al begins, as Renaissance's faces fall. “I don't know what your bloody advert is about. It doesn't mention tissues once in the voiceover. It might make me or my grandmother or my auntie smile and look at the little kid crying and think 'aahhh', but it ain't gonna make me look for those on the shelves. You lost. I'm sorry, you lost, and it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the three professionals I consulted today.”
Alex, Lucinda and Lee can't believe their luck, and practically walk out of the room with their fists in the air.
In the cafe round the corner, Raef makes one thing clear. “The boardroom is usually this place where huge fireworks take place,” he says, “but I can absolutely guarantee to you now that this is not going to happen. Frankly we've been unified, and I'm going to stick with that”, he finishes. The others smile and nod in agreement, while brandishing hatchets behind their backs. Although Raef is commendable in his efforts to play fair, he soon finds out that there's no place for gentlemanly behaviour when in Sir Alan's lair...
“Everything that you like about this advertisement came from me”, Michael insists, as Sir Alan raises an eyebrow. Raef, meanwhile, practically raises his entire hairstyle. “How on earth?” he splutters. “What on earth are you talking about?”, he cries.
“That's my boy”, Sir Alan thinks, as the cogs whirr in his mind and a decision is made.
“I feel that you've been lucky that you've only been in this boardroom once”, he begins, as Raef's bottom lip begins to tremble. “I have come to the conclusion that the one of you that's going is the one who actually I think is, with all due respect, a lot of hot air.”
Michael, then?
“Raef – you're fired.”
Yaaaaaaay! He's gone! He's finally gone... what? What do you mean, he fired Raef? Are you sure he didn't say Michael?
You're sure. I can't believe it. Just when I think Sugar can't make any more stupid, shock decisions, there he goes again.
“Close call though”, sniffs Margaret, as if that makes it any better.
I'm speechless. Just speechless. But I bet you're not. Comment on tonight's show below!
Written by joebrettuk Blog about this entry |
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22:19:00 o'clock BST
The Apprentice - Week 9
It's early morning in the Apprentice house and everyone is fast asleep, but that doesn't prevent Frances The PA from getting on the blower. “Sir Alan would like you to meet him at the National Theatre”, she whispers, her voice tainted by sadness. Alas, poor Frances. If only she was a good enough actress to tread the boards at the National, bringing the works of Pinter to life with a little help from the likes of Vanessa Redgrave and Ian McKellen, instead of sitting in an overheated studio being asked to do yet another take of “You can go into the boardroom now” because she keeps fluffing her one line. Poor, snooty, monotone Frances, who is replaced every series. When WILL her big break come?
An hour later, seven bleary-eyed businessprats line up on the South Bank. “What they do here is put on plays”, says Sherlock Holmes, gesturing at the theatre dismissively. Right. So what are we doing here, then, Sir Alan? “This task is about you telling a story also, by way of a television advert”, he continues. So putting on an award-winning production at a world-renowned playhouse is the same as asking Nadine Baggott to talk about her pentapeptides, is it? I'm no authority on the world of advertising, but I doubt Alan Bennett was drafted in to write the commercials for Charmin.
This week, the two teams have to devise a campaign for their own brand of tissues. This involves filming a TV commercial, and designing a press ad too. They'll then have to pitch their ideas to a selection of advertising bigwigs, who have agreed to take time out from telling us to eat yogurts “more positively” or imploring us to discuss our constipation over lunch with glamorous friends.
“The general mood is one of gaiety and excitement a the prospect of directing our own little feature”, smiles Renaissance project manager Raef, who once knew a woman who sold Cornettos in the Odeon and therefore thinks that he's the right person to bring a touch of Kenneth Branagh to a 30-second promo about snotrags. Michael is equally keen, as he was part of a drama company at Edinburgh University - which, as we all know, is not what it was. (Note to Michael: putting a traffic cone on your head and being sick in the doorway of Jenners does not constitute street theatre.)
But how to advertise such a mundane household product? Michael thinks he has the answer. “My idea is the start of a beautiful relationship revolving around a tissue”, he smiles, clearly remembering all the times he's asked somebody out and they've cried with laughter. Claire, meanwhile, comes up with the snappy brand name 'I Love My Tissues'. Poor Claire. They're her only friend.
While she and Helene head off to design the packaging, Raef and Michael work on the TV promo. After selecting their filming location (the kind of school where the curriculum features gymkhana lessons for all the girls, and the boys are forced to wear shorts all year round, even when it's snowing), Raef comes up with the brilliant idea of paying a celebrity to appear in their advert.
However, instead of casting somebody one might associate with tissues, such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Leslie Grantham, Raef comes up with the bright idea of hiring Siân Lloyd - ITV's face of thunder.
Siân is an interesting choice, I think, especially as I wouldn't be surprised if I read on Wikipedia that she was born without tearducts. And Nick Hewer is equally unimpressed. “The point of hiring a celebrity is that you hire her for what she's best known as”, he sneers. “Siân Lloyd is a weathergirl”, he confirms, for the benefit of people viewing in non-ITV households. Lloyd, meanwhile, finds the idea that she'll bring a “wholesome” element to their campaign hilarious. “If they'd Googled me they'd have realised that I'm single, I'm not a mother, and I haven't really done any work with children”, she smiles, before accepting a lump sum to be filmed playing the part of a parent dropping her son off at school.
“What we wanted is a non-woody, Di Caprio-esque type way of acting, and I think we've got that on the bench scene”, says Raef, speaking of the final shot in which a small boy cheers up a crying girl by offering her an 'I Love My Tissues' (see – just doesn't work, does it?). “Everything is done through gestures”, he smiles. Canyou imagine what gesture I'm making at the screen, Raef? Especially at the bit where you and Michael practically hold hands while cooing that each other is the next Almodovar or Fellini? If this carries on much longer, I'm going to have to start watching The Apprentice accompanied by the kitchen basin. Bleurgh.
One session in the editing suite later, and Helene and Claire are unimpressed. Siân Lloyd's cameo is over in the blink of an eye – and that's the only good thing about it. The worst bit is that you barely get to see the actual product. Clang! “I wouldn't show it to my family”, moans Claire, “Let alone the head of the biggest advertising agency in the UK.”
Meanwhile, Team Alpha start brainstorming names for their brand. Lee suggests 'Snot', because it's “funky”. “I wouldn't want a packet of Snot in my handbag”, Lucinda points out, before suggesting the name 'Atishu'. And although she wins a few points for the name, she loses several thousand with team leader Alex for her idea of using a gay couple to promote them. “If I had that box of tissues, Lee would come to my house and be like, 'Isn't that the box of tissues off the gay advert?'”, Alex points out. Tsk, Alex! You are missing the point. Real men, gay or straight, have no need for tissues! We dry our eyes on fibreglass and feral wolves. We're not all preening nancy boys like you, y'know.
Lucinda is rewarded for her wonky attempts at “ideation” (not my word, I promise) by being dispatched to find a family home where they can film their ad. And she's jolly cross about it too. That evening, when she arrives at the casting studio, she spends the first two hours berating Lee and Alex – which leaves them with little time to audition various hams. “There's nothing that is exciting or dynamic or, dare I say, vaguely fascinating about what we've got”, she snips, seemingly in the belief that they've been asked to bring back Prime Suspect and not cobble together footage of a few part-time thespians blowing their noses.
Her tantrum continues into the next day. Upon being presented with the final tissue box designs, she dismisses them as “quite repulsive”. She also has a good old bitch about her team leader. “It's a real shame, because Alex is a lovely guy, but he's useless”, she frowns. “He's actually worse than useless.” Which, when put through one of Sir Alan's patented Amstrad truth translators, comes out as “I want to lead! I WANT TO BE THE LEADER! ME ME ME! I DO! I'M WEARING THE TEAM LEADER BERET!”
In the car it gets even worse, as Alex and Lucinda embark upon the most inarticulate slanging match of the series so far. “I don't like the boxing, I don't like the colours and I don't like the pictures”, Lucinda sniffs. “We're trying to get across the message that... y'know, family, blankets, comfortable...” Alex retorts, before they launch into a row about people sitting on a settee, or something else that I fail to follow. Lucinda ends up wagging her finger and going “Naughty, naughty, naughty”. Perhaps Alex isn't allowed on the settee because he's not housetrained? Is that it?
Lee swears at Lucinda. Lucinda swears back at Lee. Lucinda wins, I think. But, when Alex finally manages to calm her down, they've spent so much time bickering that there's barely any time left in the programme for footage of their shoot to be included. All we see is something that resembles an opening scene from Casualty circa 1990, way back when all its stories revolved around little girls with head colds, and not acid-powered spaceships crashing into shopping centres and melting hundreds of people's faces in a variety of new and exciting ways.
The next day, both teams head to ad agency Ogilvy. Here, they must give their presentations to an audience comprising three hateful executives; a variety of consumers who are there for the free cups of squash and a sit down; and you-know-who. Renaissance goes first, with Claire leading the pitch. Despite a few tortured analogies about tissues being like politicians (a guarded reference to that time when a hooded youth coughed phlegm onto David Cameron, perhaps), she does a fairly decent job. It's almost a shame, then, that their advert is pretty rubbish. “Has Siân Lloyd abducted a child?” asks one confused old dear at the back. “Is that why he's crying? Is that what's happening?”
Lee then proves that, while he's good at making stupid noises, he does not share Claire's gift of the gab. As Alpha's pitch was reworded and reworded again during the few short minutes before they went in, Lee is over-reliant on his notes and keeps coming out with gems such as “We have aimed our product at a female genre”. The ad execs check their watches. Margaret Mountford concentrates on her Sudoku.
Their advert, since you ask, is unspeakably awful. Absolutely agonising. While watching it, I almost reach for the Bostik so I can seal my eyes shut forever. Even Big Grey Al can't keep his composure, and ends up with his hand over his mouth. That's how bad it is.
In the boardroom, Sir Alan plays the ads back to the teams. Michael and Claire sit and guffaw at Team Alpha's entry, as Alex squirms. “My initial reaction towards their telly ad is that it lacks any kind of subtlety”, opposite team leader Raef declares. “I understand that adverts need to make clear what they're advertising”, he states, before sitting back in his chair, awaiting a trip to Harvey Nicks courtesy of Sugar's largesse.
Or not.
“You made the biggest error going”, Al begins, as Renaissance's faces fall. “I don't know what your bloody advert is about. It doesn't mention tissues once in the voiceover. It might make me or my grandmother or my auntie smile and look at the little kid crying and think 'aahhh', but it ain't gonna make me look for those on the shelves. You lost. I'm sorry, you lost, and it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the three professionals I consulted today.”
Alex, Lucinda and Lee can't believe their luck, and practically walk out of the room with their fists in the air.
In the cafe round the corner, Raef makes one thing clear. “The boardroom is usually this place where huge fireworks take place,” he says, “but I can absolutely guarantee to you now that this is not going to happen. Frankly we've been unified, and I'm going to stick with that”, he finishes. The others smile and nod in agreement, while brandishing hatchets behind their backs. Although Raef is commendable in his efforts to play fair, he soon finds out that there's no place for gentlemanly behaviour when in Sir Alan's lair...
“Everything that you like about this advertisement came from me”, Michael insists, as Sir Alan raises an eyebrow. Raef, meanwhile, practically raises his entire hairstyle. “How on earth?” he splutters. “What on earth are you talking about?”, he cries.
“That's my boy”, Sir Alan thinks, as the cogs whirr in his mind and a decision is made.
“I feel that you've been lucky that you've only been in this boardroom once”, he begins, as Raef's bottom lip begins to tremble. “I have come to the conclusion that the one of you that's going is the one who actually I think is, with all due respect, a lot of hot air.”
Michael, then?
“Raef – you're fired.”
Yaaaaaaay! He's gone! He's finally gone... what? What do you mean, he fired Raef? Are you sure he didn't say Michael?
You're sure. I can't believe it. Just when I think Sugar can't make any more stupid, shock decisions, there he goes again.
“Close call though”, sniffs Margaret, as if that makes it any better.
I'm speechless. Just speechless. But I bet you're not. Comment on tonight's show below!
Written by joebrettuk Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has 37 comments: (Add your own)
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Great, great blog! I enjoy it as much and even more than the show itself. I feel compelled to comment for the first time by the most unfair sacking I have ever seen on this show. Raef did get caught up in the filming of the advert and lost sight of what it was he was supposed to be doing but still......Michael, the twerp, has been in the boardroom time and time again ( I still haven't recovered over the chicken thinghy, good Jewish boy indeed) and most surely should have gone. Raef had not been in the boardroom since week one and had done well in previous tasks, why sack him over this last task when Michael was clearly as responsible for it failing? Not to mention Claire and her horrible choice of name for a tissue brand. What dismayed me the most was the "full of hot air" comment. What was based that on? Could Sir Alan explain? I, along many other people, think that Sir Alan must have a soft spot for Michael based on the Jewish connection, even though that connection seems tenuous at best when the "good Jewish boy" does not even know what kosher means! As for Raef, his flowery language obviously disturbed Sir Alan a great deal, I think the working class londoner couldn't handle it. Reverse snobbery indeed. It's all a great shame, Raef annoyed me so much that first week but turned out to be clever with excellent manners and really grew on me. He was my favourite until last week. I am now backing Lucinda who is the best of a bad bunch. Michael is despicable, Claire too much of a backstabber, Helen is just horrible and Lee, That's what I'm talking about!, a buffoon. It sure won't be the same without Raef.........
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Has no-one yet mentioned Michael's hilarious cod-Jew Fagin in the back of the people carrier (after Raef had given him his 'emotive' Twelfth Night)?? I keep watching it. Over and over again. It might just become my ringtone...
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Ok Michael is going to win or at least be in the final two that much is now blatently obvious...Odious little tw@t that Adrian Chiles dubbed him as in the BBC2 show was an insult to odious little tw@t's...Am upset Raef is gone, big time upset and i hated him to begin with
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OMG...when Alan said " the one thats full of hot air.." we all thought Micheal and began to reach for our celebratory bottle of wine..then he said "Raef" and i shouted No!!! at the screen..to be honest who cares who wins now? They're all slimes, except Lucinda and she's like your dotty old aunt..
The music for Alphas advert? which 70's show did that come from? corniness or what? and those actors were crap, still at least they shoved Atishu far enough down our throats for us to choke.
26/05/08 12:43