Sir Alan Sugar (23 page)

And what a final two there were! Gareth Gates was a fresh-faced boy from Yorkshire with the voice of an angel when he sang, but a severe stammer when he spoke. Will Young was the posh, slightly awkward boy from Berkshire who had gathered extra support when he confronted judge Cowell about his rude and withering assessments of the contestants. The country was gripped by
Pop Idol
fever in the week of the final, and Gates and Young took to election-style campaign buses, travelling round the country whipping up support. On the night, there was an avalanche of voting and Will Young won the title. Although the second series (won by Scottish singer Michelle McManus) was less of a success, and even though
Pop Idol
has since been usurped and
replaced by Cowell’s new show
The X Factor
, the show’s legacy and stature is for ever assured by the incredible global franchise that it has attained, with local versions of the show appearing on television worldwide from America to Vietnam.

It is in America, however, that the ‘Idol franchise’ has been most successful. As Ed Caesar wrote in the
Independent
on the success of
American Idol
: ‘
Idol
has eaten America. To understand quite how gluttonously, you have to cross the Atlantic. You have to look at the newsstands, where, last week, three national magazines featured one or all of
American Idol
’s star presenters – Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Ryan Seacrest – on their front covers. You have to visit the supermarkets, where
American Idol
ice cream is flying off the shelves. You have to look in the record shops, where sales of
American Idol
artists have now passed 50 million units. And, of course, you have to turn on the television, where not only has
American Idol
’s
prime-time
slot pulled as many as 41 million viewers, but where the show’s enormous reach has launched the most unlikely of stars.’

Interestingly, the success of
American Idol
has been very much credited to the team of Brits behind it: Simon Fuller, Simon Cowell, Nigel Lythgoe and Warwick. Cowell says the show has a very British sense of humour to it, and even credits the American presenter Ryan Seacrest with a ‘very British’ style.

With
The Apprentice
, of course, the roles were reversed: it began in America and was then imported into Britain. However, in time, the show would make the return trip as the British version was sold to America and elsewhere on the planet. Having been such a hit in the UK, it was only going to be a matter of time before
The Apprentice
was shown overseas. Given how peculiarly British Alan Sugar’s gruff manner and delivery is, it was interesting to see how overseas critics would receive it, as it rolled out across the globe’s television networks. It has been shown in a number of countries, including America, Australia and South Africa. In Australia, a famously plain-speaking nation, as one might imagine, Sugar’s outspoken, macho delivery went down well, and there was praise aplenty for him when
The Apprentice
:
UK
was aired on Channel 7 in 2008. On this leading Aussie channel, the programme sat in the listings alongside shows including
Home & Away, Deal or No Deal, Make Me a Supermodel
and
10 Years Younger in 10 Days
. The channel did some imaginative marketing to promote the show in Australia, by sending attractive ladies out in Channel 7 T-shirts, handing out packets of lollipops with a sticker on the packet reading: ‘Alan Sugar … Sweet by name, not by nature.’ It was a marketing ploy that would surely have won Sugar’s approval had an
Apprentice
team thought it up in one of the show’s tasks.

It captured the imagination of commuters in Australia and helped create a fanbase in homes – and newspapers
– across the country. The South Australian newspaper the
Sunday
Mail
led the cheers of appreciation. ‘Move over Donald Trump – Alan Sugar is in the boardroom, and he’s far more entertaining,’ cheered their reviewer. ‘The billionaire founder of 1980s electronics giant Amstrad does the firing in this UK version of the American reality show, and he’s got even more chutzpah than his New York comrade (not to mention better hair). In episode one, the female contestants predictably use their sex appeal to get ahead in the challenge. The result? Sugar goes totally mental. Fantastic.’ Fantastic indeed. And the hair obsession did not end with the
Sunday Mail
, with another Aussie newspaper,
The Age Melbourne
, summing up their preview of the show with, ‘Sir Alan Sugar doesn’t have as interesting hair as Donald Trump.’

Hair comparisons aside, Australia was falling in love with this new Cockney face on their television screens. From Perth to Sydney, Melbourne to Canberra, viewers were tuning in to see Alan Sugar’s latest boardroom dressing-downs of the contestants. And they liked what they were seeing. The ringleader for the growing Sugar fan club Down Under came in the shape of the
Townsville Bulletin Australia
reviewer who summed up just why the Amstrad ace was proving such a hit: ‘Overblown reality TV vehicle was self-aggrandising nonsense, but this UK version instantly caught my attention thanks to the magnetic presence of its star, Sir Alan Sugar,’ he began. ‘I gave Sir Alan a chance to
impress … let’s just say that he had me at, “I don’t know if you’re just a bloody nutter”. There’s an undeniably roguish charm about this latest reality TV star which makes
The Apprentice: UK
fascinating viewing. Sir Alan, however, will be a breath of fresh air to many viewers.’

The
Weekend Australian
magazine was less impressed. Placing the show in the context of the Channel 7 fortunes, it nonetheless threw a few punches. ‘You can see the logic. Seven let go of the low-rating
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
only to see it become a phenomenal success years later on Nine. Maybe this is another show whose time has come. But Alan Sugar, the man who founded Amstrad computing in the 1980s, does not have the sweary charm of Gordon Ramsay or, for that matter, the mercurial personality and comprehension-defying hair of Donald Trump, host of the original US
Apprentice
.’ The
Sydney Morning Herald
was more positive: ‘If you’ve seen the ads, you can easily imagine Sir Alan Sugar, the British business clone of Donald Trump, as being among the world’s most unpleasant bosses. In fact, he’s harsh – no doubt about that – but reasonable, too.’

The Age
gave a more upbeat synopsis: ‘14 ambitious, congenially up-themselves swells in suits and skirts front up to the office of Sir Alan Sugar, a British self-made billionaire (in Australian dollars anyway). Sir Alan, like his US counterpart Donald Trump, has made his huge
fortune through a combination of business acumen, hard work and eating people for breakfast, and here he has a smorgasbord of ego-driven, self-deluding tykes upon which to feed.’

The
Age
review continued by comparing the English version with the American original, which Aussie viewers had already enjoyed: ‘There is, however, one key point of distinction. We somehow expect to see Americans tearing each other’s throat out in the quest for a high-paying job, but there is still some novelty in seeing Brits doing the same thing. This becomes gloriously pronounced in the final boardroom scene where the three candidates for dismissal get sucked into a panic spiral of accusation as Sir Alan prepares to fire one of them. But the big question, of course, is: how does Sir Alan stack up compared to adorable comb-over king Donald Trump? The answer is: pretty darn well. While Sir Alan might not have the swagger of Trump’s city-swallowing hubris he does have the gruff, rough-around-the-edges charm of a council-flat kid who made his pile using brains, balls and street smarts.’

So, overall, a big thumbs-up from Down Under.

As for the Americans, they were intrigued to see how their show would look and sound in the British version. As the
Newsday
, New York, newspaper put the big question: ‘Does “You’re Fired!” sound better with a British accent? We’ll find out when CNBC imports
The Apprentice UK
. It’s overseen by tough-talking business
titan Alan Sugar, a working-class school dropout who made his multimillions in computers, jets and the Tottenham Hotspur football club.’ Although the school dropout description was a little wide of the mark, it was clear what they were trying to do.

The
Baltimore Sun
had previewed it favourably: ‘Tonight’s guilty pleasure, much as I hate to admit it, I must be an Anglophile. Everything I hate about NBC’s
The Apprentice
, I like in
The Apprentice
: UK
, the Brit version. Self-made rich guy Sir Alan Sugar makes Donald Trump seem like a wimp.’

The CNBC channel was a fitting home for the show. It is widely regarded as the world leader in business news, broadcasting to more than 340 million homes worldwide, including more than 95 million households in the United States and Canada. It proudly launched
The Apprentice: UK
on 25 August 2008 at 9pm and 1am Eastern Time.

The reviews came thick and fast. Matt Millar in the
Daily Deal
wrote, ‘On the show, which has achieved the same cult status as its US cousin, one contestant actually had the temerity to quit on camera, citing personal problems and what she insisted were other contestants’ constant attempts to undermine her. Sugar gave her the evil eye and told her to shut up. Life was tough, he snarled, then fired her anyway.’

‘The great thing about
The Apprentice
’, wrote a columnist for the
Sun
, ‘is that much as we hate most of
these contestants, Alan Sugar seems to hate them far more.’ Sugar, as the
Sun
columnist points out, is permanently ticked off, making Trump seem a lightweight.

The
Lansing State Journal
, Michigan, noted that the British version was more true to life than the American original: ‘In this version, crusty Sir Alan Sugar does the hiring. Unlike the US version, this doesn’t seem obsessed with telegenic contestants. Also, it rains a lot.’

Another feature of Sugar’s post-Amstrad career has been his newspaper columns, including his must-read articles in the
Sun
. In these, he has become an articulate commentator on a number of issues, including the future of Premiership football. When Manchester City were brought by Arab billionaire Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim in 2008, comparisons were made between Al Fahim and Sugar, although these were not comparisons that Sugar necessarily went along with. ‘I hear Manchester City’s new owner Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim is being compared to me,’ he wrote in the
Sun
. ‘Well, we’ve both got beards, his daddy has loads of oil reserves. My daddy’s reserves were in an oil can he used on his sewing machine in our council flat. And, wait for it … we’re both doctors. Yes that’s shocked you – I am a DSc from both London City and Brunel Universities. To be honest, I draw the line at hysterectomies.’

He went on to describe how he spent the transfer deadline day glued to his television screen, and was as
stunned as everyone when he learned the Robinho had signed for Manchester City. However, he predicted trouble ahead at the club, between their new owner and manager Mark Hughes. ‘I have visions of Dr Al calling a meeting in the dressing room: “Hello and greetings … Mr Mark, I don’t like this 4–4–2. We play next week Camel formation, OK, do it.”’

Returning to his infamous ‘Carlos Kickaballs’ statement of the 1990s, Sir Alan claimed to be vindicated. ‘We wonder why we can’t put out a good England team. The reason is the Premier League attracts all the imports – as I put it 15 years ago, the Carlos Kickaballs who have no interest in the UK club they play for. They are playing for themselves. This is stopping young English players getting a chance to enhance their skills and learn their trade in the teams that they really love and admire. Teams they really did follow as a boy.’

So Sugar remains as sharp as ever when dissecting the football world, but the topic where it seems he is at his most eloquent and powerful is that of politics. In 2008, he was quick to pounce on an own goal by Conservative leader David Cameron, who had moaned about
The Apprentice
and its star, saying, ‘I can’t bear Alan Sugar. I like TV to escape.’

On hearing of this Cameron putdown, Sugar had an immediate and witty riposte: ‘I’m glad he can’t bear me. Perhaps he will stop asking people to sound me out if I want to meet him and defect to his party.’ He added, ‘I
am still waiting for him to answer my question: if he was in power would things be any different? He seems to know when to stay silent.’

Everyone seemed amused at Cameron’s cock-up. The
Mirror
wrote, ‘Novice David Cameron committed a schoolboy howler by getting into a slanging match with Sir Alan Sugar. When Mr Cameron comes out of hiding next week he must come up with answers to the vital questions. And Sir Alan will be there to shout: ‘You’re fired!’

The
Sun
echoed the sentiment, ‘Sugar and spite: Sir Alan exposes Tory Leader Cam as a sham’.

Sugar was very impressed with Gordon Brown for his handling of the banking crisis. ‘It seems the Prime Minister has been very smart, as yesterday the Americans announced an almost carbon copy of his plans,’ wrote Sir Alan. ‘However, with all that banking stuff sorted, we have to consider ongoing issues. We are not out of the woods yet.’ The main ongoing issue Sugar suggested we focus on was simple: buy British. ‘I would never have thought I would be dishing out compliments to the French, but there are some things I admire about them. Chief among them was that the French public made a patriotic effort to buy French.’

He urged, via the pages of the
Sun
, the British public to do likewise. Naturally, it was a campaign that truly captured the imagination of the
Sun
readers.

Even
Dragons’ Den
Dragon James Caan put aside seeming TV rivalries and backed the Sugar-led
campaign. He wrote, ‘I want to back the
Sun
’s campaign to support small businesses but would argue a package for stimulation could go even further. We are a nation of shopkeepers and somehow Government support for our nation has dwindled and with it confidence that things will get better. At a time when small businesses need to be springing to life, instead so many obstacles are in their way.