It’s that time of year again. No I’m not talking about Christmas adverts being on television at the beginning of October – I’m of course talking about the return of The Apprentice! From now until just before Christmas - every week we get to hear the words ‘You’re fired’ said to some unsuspecting entrepreneur wannabe. Exactly a year ago today – I was bought back into Lord Sugar's boardroom and escaped alive – but that can't be said today for ex-Shameless actress Sarah Byrne.
The Apprentice returned this week (October 3) with a selection of new candidates / Credit: Photographer Jim Marks for BBC/Boundless Taylor Herring
The candidates themselves are varied this year. We have a tax inspector who masquerades as a part time DJ (who curiously told Lord Sugar he doesn’t know how to negotiate – don’t expect him to last very long!), an owner of a tennis events company and the owner of a tree surgery company.
It’s very rare for the ‘scavenger hunt’ task to be the first task – but that is exactly what happened in this week's debut episode. Within minutes of meeting each other and given a scary talk by Lord Sugar – all 16 candidates were whisked off to Malta.
Kayode Damali put himself forward as project manager of the boys. He didn’t seem to instil any confidence in his team despite saying he is a professional speaker. Credit to him though for volunteering – always a big no no on week one of the show.
This was in contrast to the girls team after Jackie Fast – after only knowing Jasmine Kundra for 5 minutes – insisted she become project manager.
The task itself was all over the place – a personal highlight being the boys buying a dead octopus instead of diving equipment.
When it came to the boardroom – the girls lost the task after not only spending more money, but being fined for finishing the task late.
Not surprisingly Sarah Byrne was fired. She was too loud for Lord Sugar, didn’t follow instructions from the project manager and didn’t display business acumen.
On to week 2 we go!
Tagged in The Apprentice