Sir Alan Sugar (17 page)

An internal communications manger for an oil company, 35-year-old Lindsay was not as quick to shout about her ambition as other candidates, but she insisted that didn’t mean she lacked that quality.

Glamorous Miranda was a 26-year-old managing director of a commission-based estate agency. Having already launched two successful companies, she claimed to have been a saleswoman since the tender age of 12. A previous manager said of Miranda that ‘her sales technique and the profits she generated for the company remain legendary’. The question mark was whether, behind her brilliant presentational skills, there was any substance in this candidate. Time would tell. Miriam had made a
20-hour
round trip to attend each stage of the interview process to get through to appear on
The Apprentice
, underlining her motivation: ‘It’s an investment for the future,’ she explained.

Rachel, a fundraising manager for one of the largest national children’s charities, was bubbly and charismatic.

Then there was Saira. A corporate sales manager for an online recruitment company, she was full of drive and energy. So strong was her self-belief and confidence that she delayed her wedding plans in order to take part in
The Apprentice
. ‘I hope that as an Asian woman I will give other Asian women the inspiration to go out there and do well in business,’ she declared. A gym freak, she also spoke four languages as well as English – Bhari, Urdu, Punjabi and Hindu. This was fitting, for she was without doubt the most talkative of the candidates. Would she be too chatty for her own good? Would she play as good a game as she talked?

First up for the guys was the smooth and sophisticated Ben. A handsome, charismatic man, he ran his own headhunting firm, a field he had worked in since the age of 17. His pedigree was undeniable, and he had once been voted Global Consultant of the Year.

Another suave operator was James, a former
public-school
boy who lived by the maxim ‘I seek success as a result of my own achievements’. He was no stranger to business-related competitions, having previously been a finalist in
Property Week
’s Young Property Personality of the Year. Articulate and posh, from the start James seemed destined to be a particularly memorable candidate, and so it was to prove.

Sebastian, another posh boy, was a Savile Row-suited corporate finance man.

The oldest candidate was 39-year-old former
Conservative parliamentary candidate Matthew, who was more than a little eccentric. Tall and brimming with enthusiasm, he admitted from the off that diplomacy was not his strong point, which proved to be something of an understatement. That said, Sir Alan himself said that he knew how it felt to be accused of having an attitude problem, so he was not about to automatically write Matthew off.

Raj was the founder and managing director of an estate agency. He had a business failure on his record, but Sir Alan said he would not hold this against a candidate in whom he recognised plentiful entrepreneurial characteristics.

‘I know I’m not the cleverest bloke in business, so I always make sure I check everything, and then I check and check again,’ said 34-year-old Paul, introducing himself to the viewing public. But he was being a little hard on himself, for, as would become very quickly apparent, Paul was a born salesman. Sir Alan said he recognised a lot of his younger self in Paul. With a potential to erupt into temper, Paul was one to watch.

The opening words of Tim Campbell were not without confidence. ‘Sir Alan has a lot he could teach me. Perhaps I might know a few things that I could teach him as well.’ With a sharp eye and a charismatic presence, Tim was also a man who managed to become popular quickly, making him a fine team player. Even without the benefit
of hindsight, it was clear that this young man was going to be a major contender.

The first task appeared simple enough: the two teams were sent out to buy and sell flowers, and the team who made the more money would be crowned winners, and, in the now famous words to the losing team, ‘one of you will get fired’.

Saira headed the First Forte team, and Tim headed the Impact team. First Forte began by selling flowers at a market before deciding to sell on the street. Impact, on the other hand, immediately started selling flowers door to door and won the task. While they celebrated on the London Eye, Saira’s First Forte team were dragged into the dreaded boardroom. Sir Alan chewed over the options of whom to dismiss, before finally deciding. He pointed his finger at Adenike and uttered the immortal
Apprentice
line, ‘You’re fired!’

Week two’s task was to design a new product for a toy company. Impact won again, not least because the First Forte team leader Lindsay did not listen to her colleagues and instead went with a bizarre product called ‘Secret Signals’.

Sugar decided to mix up the teams, and, after two further victories by the Impact team (one on a purchasing task, the other on a selling task), the show had lost two more women: Adele and Miranda. Then, First Forte finally won its first task in an entertaining episode. The teams had been asked to choose an artist and sell their
work at an art gallery. First Forte brought back
£
19,563 to the boardroom. Although Impact had sold more paintings, their artist’s work sold less per work and as a result they netted just
£
6,147. So it was that the first man of the series – Matthew – heard the words, ‘You’re fired!’

First Forte were the winners the following week, too, when their task had been to design an advertisement for the Amstrad jukebox music system and pitch it to firms. In what proved to be a hilarious episode, advertising woman Rachel performed a bizarre pitch that involved her throwing her shoes across the room and dancing in a manner that could at best be described as eccentric. Paul, Saira and – inevitably – Rachel were taken into the boardroom. Rachel was the contestant to be fired but Sugar also scolded Paul and Saira, who had been arguing constantly.

If Rachel had shown herself up herself in that episode, then many of the contestants matched her performance in the following week. The task here was to negotiate with five celebrities and persuade them to donate their property or services for a charity auction in aid of the refurbishment of Hackney Empire, back in Sir Alan’s old stomping ground. One of the celebrities was Paul McKenna, and Raj chose to lead the negotiations, as he was a confirmed fan of the celebrity hypnotist. In the event, Raj was utterly starstruck and rambled embarrassingly at McKenna until Paul intervened and took over the pitch. Meanwhile, Tim managed to offend
Ian Wright during their negotiations and he had to be bailed out by Miriam. On the night of the auction, there was more toe-curling when the theatre tickets donated by comedian Mel Smith almost failed to sell. Ben’s Impact team won the night, by raising
£
18,000 to First Forte’s
£
10,000. James, Raj and Sebastian went into the boardroom, and Sebastian was the next to be shown the door.

Ben was fired in week eight after a task that involved selling food at a country market. The winning team – First Forte – were given as their reward a trip to Monaco, where they were allowed to gamble their task profits at a swish casino.

Week nine saw Saira at her entertaining and enraging best. The task was to market a text-messaging service to fans of Sugar’s old club, Tottenham Hotspur. Saira was far too pushy towards the club marketing manager and relations between both teams and the club suffered hugely as a result. Paul’s Impact team beat Saira’s First Forte team, and Saira came within a whisker of being fired in the boardroom, but in the end it was Raj who was dismissed, because he had once more failed to take throw himself sufficiently into the task.

Miriam was sacked at the end of the next task, which involved selling products on a shopping channel, despite her highly accomplished presenting performance. But she had failed to keep control of her team, with Paul proving to be particularly livewire.

And so to the semifinals, where each of the remaining candidates – James, Paul, Saira and Tim – were grilled by a panel of tough interviewers hired by Sir Alan. James and Paul failed to impress the interviewers and were both fired. Paul was considered too aggressive, and there were question marks as to whether he truly wished to be the Apprentice, which was also the main reason for James’s dismissal. So, the show had its final two: the dependable Tim and the entertaining Saira.

It was to prove to be an engaging final, with fired candidates brought back to the show to help, as Tim and Saira went head to head each organising an event on a riverboat. Saira put on a wine-tasting night, while Tim held a fashion show. Naturally, Sir Alan turned up to both evenings. Here, the winner was not determined merely by who did better financially from the task (in which case, Saira would have been hired). Instead, the overall performance and long-term visions of the candidates were taken into account. In the boardroom, having considered all the aspects, Sir Alan pointed at Tim and said, ‘You’re hired!’
The Apprentice
had crowned its first winner.

Sugar admitted that he had looked forward to the moment in the series when, instead of saying the negative ‘You’re fired!’, he could instead utter ‘You’re hired.’ He had known from the off that there would be occasions where it would be ‘heartbreaking’ to have to tell a contestant they were fired. ‘You’d be an iron-cold person
if you said it doesn’t matter,’ he admitted. Indeed, he has revealed, one of the few non-negotiable aspects of his part on the show is that he has to utter the line exactly the same way every week. ‘Personally, I’d have liked the flexibility to be able to vary it, to say, “You’re sacked!” or “Get out!” or possibly even “Clear off!”’ He shrugs. ‘But they tell me “You’re fired!” is great TV.’ However, lest we conclude he was turning soft, he added, ‘On the other hand, there are certain types of people I have no trouble firing: the lazy, the incompetent, the disloyal.’ He also enjoyed telling Tim that he was the winner, and therefore hired.

However, all involved in the series were winners, as it proved to be extremely successful. The viewer ratings were impressive, at first averaging around 2.5 million, with this figure climbing to around 4 million viewers by the end of the series. The critical reception was also pleasing for all involved. The
Sun
said dubbed it ‘the thinking man’s reality show’, and the
Mirror
described it as ‘jaw-dropping viewing’. Broadsheet newspapers seemed head-over-heels for the programme, too, with the
Daily Telegraph
calling it ‘the most addictive show in years’, and the
Guardian
saying that it provided ‘a salutary lesson in aggressive buying and selling, hiring and firing’. The
Sunday Times
said that it was ‘not just a game show: it’s a business school’. The
Evening Standard
also praised it, describing the programme as ‘terribly compelling’.

Journalist James Brown was also suitably impressed. Writing in the
Independent
, he gushed, ‘There is a feeling among reality-TV experts that
The Apprentice
may be the best programme of its genre ever shown on British television. It has all the trappings of core reality programming: a group of ordinary people who want something and are tested on television to get it.’ Given the glut of reality-television shows, this was high praise indeed.

Brown then turned his pen to the star of the show: ‘Then it has its honey-trap character, a magnetic personality who emerges during the series and stealthily gets you obsessed. This person, naturally, is Sugar: a rough-and-ready, straight-talking, self-made East End trader, manufacturer and landlord who has honed his instinct for a deal into a billion-dollar business. On top of this the programme-makers have shot London from the air in the style of Hollywood legends Michael Mann and David Fincher, and added a soundtrack that ratchets up the tension.’

The first series won a host of awards including the Most Popular Reality Show at the 2005 National Television Awards. Sugar has since said that he had foreseen all this popularity. He explained that, on starting work on it, he quickly realised just how exciting and successful the show was going to be. Asked if he expected it to become a hit, he said, ‘Yes, I did actually. Not when they first asked me, but when I could see how
it was going from the slices I was shown by the production crew. What you see is me, there’s no acting, and the same goes for the apprentices. It has been an amazing experience, in that I’ve learned about the world of television and how to make a TV programme. Hats off to the production team, because for every one of those episodes, there must have been 35 hours of film. They’ve had to watch it all and edit it down. The BBC have spent money on quality; then again, they’ll be able to use those opening shots again in a second series. Would I do a second series? Yes.’

However, on the question of scheduling, he was somewhat more critical of the Beeb. ‘If I have any criticism of the BBC, it is only that they picked a poor night by scheduling it on Wednesday, because it clashes with the Champions League. The first few weeks they were ecstatic, because they were attracting the elusive audience of 29- to 35-year-old boyos, the yuppies, the upwardly mobile aspiring boyos. But then these guys also have Sky Plus, so I think we’re losing a lot of the audience figures to people who are watching it an hour later, after the football.’ He then moved closer to home to underline his point. ‘I can give you no better example than my own two sons. Last week they watched Chelsea–Arsenal first on Sky, and then their dad afterwards on Sky Plus.’ He added with a grin, ‘That’s loyalty for you.’

He was also critical when he discovered that journalists who were interviewing him ahead of the screening of the
final had not been allowed to know who won as they did those interviews. ‘Wha-aa-at?’ he stormed on discovering this. ‘Bloody comedians, they are! What is the point of your seeing the bloody thing? I mean, the whole action’s at the end. You’re supposed to come here with an understanding of the programme and they’ve only given you a quarter of the story.’ He asked after the PR who had made this decision: ‘Who is this fool? I’ll get him on the phone!’