The Apprentice (UK)
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The Apprentice is a British reality television series in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women compete for a £100,000-a-year job as so-called "apprentice" to British business magnate Sir Alan Sugar. It is modelled on the US show of the same name.
The first series aired in 2005 and ran for twelve episodes, and a second series commenced in February 2006. Both were produced for the BBC and shown on BBC Two at 9:00pm on Wednesday evenings. A third series, to air on BBC One, has been announced for 2007.
In May 2006 The Apprentice won the BAFTA for "Best Feature", beating Top Gear, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and Dragons' Den.
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[edit] Format
Over the course of seven weeks of filming, the candidates take part in a series of business activities which test their skills of selling, negotiation, requisitioning, leadership, teamwork and organisation. The candidates are split into two teams, followed in the execution of their tasks by Sir Alan Sugar's advisers Nick Hewer and Margaret Mount. At the end of each episode the teams report back to the "boardroom" where Sugar, with the help of his advisers, dissects their performance, exposing flaws in the candidates' strategies and personalities.
The team that loses the task (usually the one that makes the least profit) is then subjected to a detailed dressing down by Sugar, which results in one of the losing candidates being told "You're fired", and being eliminated from the competition. Week by week candidates are dismissed, until the Grand Finale when one of the remaining two is told "You're hired" and wins the high-paid executive job working with Sugar.
[edit] "The Board"
Along with "the boss", Sir Alan Sugar, two advisors follow the contestants during their weekly activities: Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford.
Nick Hewer is a former public relations officer. He first came across Sir Alan when his company was chosen to represent Amstrad in 1983. Nick’s role was as a PR manager, working with the media and press. He also became an integral part of Amstrad’s company management.
Margaret Mountford has worked with Sir Alan for over 20 years, as one of his main advisors. A former solicitor and partner at law firm Herbert Smith, she met Sir Alan while doing his legal work for Amstrad’s flotation on the Stock Exchange. She retired in 1999 and started at Amstrad as a non-executive Director.
[edit] Series One
The first series of the UK's version of The Apprentice television programme aired in 2005. It lasted for twelve episodes and was produced by the BBC and shown on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on Wednesday nights at 9:00pm.
[edit] Series Two
The second series of The Apprentice began airing on 22 February 2006, on BBC Two. Sir Alan Sugar continued to serve as the boss where he assigned the teams specifically designed tasks. Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford also returned as Sugar's advisers and observed the teams in action.
[edit] Series Three
The third series of The Apprentice is scheduled to begin on 21 February 2007. It will be the first series to be screened on BBC One.[1] This is due to the success of the programme and the fact that BBC One attracts a larger and more mainstream audience than BBC Two.
23 October 2006 - Sir Alan Sugar, his Rolls-Royce 'AMS 1' and the teams from the 3rd Series are observed during filming outside the 'Lloyds of London' building in Lime Street.
30 October 2006 - The Guardian's Media Monkey column reports seeing the contestants at London Zoo: "Contestants from the third series of The Apprentice at London Zoo, dressed as gorillas and trying to sell sweets to children but inadvertently terrifying them instead. Sir Alan, are these the worst lot yet?"
[edit] Music
The Apprentice has used the following pieces of music amongst many others:
- Incidental Theme - Black & White X 5 (from The Thomas Crown Affair) by Bill Conti
- Incidental Theme - The Gravel Road from The Village (Soundtrack) by James Newton Howard
- Incidental Theme - First Sleep from Solaris (Soundtrack) by Cliff Martinez
- Series 2 opening theme — Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev
- Incidental Theme (first used in series 2, week 9) — Drive Away (End Theme) from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Soundtrack) by Thomas Newman
- Incidental Theme (used twice in series 2, week 12) — Jazz Suite, Waltz 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich (featured in the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut)
- Incidental Theme (used in series 2, week 12) — Perpetuum Mobile by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra
- Incidental Theme (used in series 2) — Out Of Egypt, Into The Great Laugh Of Mankind, And I Shake The Dirt From My Sandals As I Run by Sufjan Stevens
- Jo Cameron's exit theme from series 2, week 6 — God Moving Over the Face of the Waters from Everything is Wrong by Moby
- Syed Ahmed's exit theme from series 2, week 10 — Comptine d'un autre été from the soundtrack to Amélie, by Yann Tiersen
- The Boardroom, You're Fired and Closing Credits — The Apprentice (Original Theme) by Dru Masters
[edit] Trivia
- In order to keep the final winner a secret, Sir Alan does not make the decision on the winning candidate until the days before the final episode is screened. It has been reported that both Ruth Badger and Michelle Dewberry (the Series 2 finalists) were working for Sir Alan during the six months between the wrapping of filming and the screening of the final.
- The boardroom (and the reception area outside) is in fact a custom-built set in a television studio. Only when the fired candidate is filmed on their "walk of shame" back to the waiting taxi is the real Amstrad HQ building in Brentwood used.
- The receptionist outside the boardroom ("Jenny") is not Sir Alan's real secretary. She is an employee of the TV production company.
- All 14 candidates film their walk of shame at the beginning of the series, at the same time as the scene where they are all seen walking into the Amstrad building at the beginning of the first episode. This explains why when their exit sequence is shown after having been fired, their clothes are sometimes different to those worn in the boardroom scene. In more noticeable cases, hair styles have also been different, namely in Episode 7 of Series 2 when Samuel was fired.
- Although the audience is under the impression that the candidates have been living together for 12 weeks in the house, in fact shooting of the series is done over seven weeks.
- Although every show features clips of aerial footage over the skyscrapers of the Square Mile and Canary Wharf financial districts, Amstrad does not have offices in either - in fact the company's real location in Brentwood (on the eastern outskirts of London) is only mentioned a few times in passing in Series 1.
- The taxi ride after being fired only takes the candidate round the block to allow the chance of filming their taxi interview. They are then taken to a local hotel to stay the night and finally leave after packing their belongings from the house.
- Michelle Dewberry, the winner of Series Two, has quit working for Alan Sugar to run her own company (which she was doing before winning The Apprentice). Shortly before her resignation, she miscarried a pregnancy. The father was a fellow contestant, Syed Ahmed.
[edit] References
- The Apprentice — official BBC website
- There's only one Apprentice — The Times online
[edit] External links
- The Apprentice fan
