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ALLY ROSS
If only Phil had kept his piehole shut, he’d have won Apprentice… only a fool could possibly have lost the prize money
The best days of The Apprentice have come and long since gone and it should be put out to grass
EVEN during a bad series of The Apprentice, every episode has one great moment that cuts through all the idle boasting, backstabbing and blah blah blah.
On last night’s final it was provided by Raj, who had such a cosmically brilliant idea for Phil’s pie empire nothing and no one was going to stop her sharing it with us all.
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“Sorry,” she began, demanding total hush after four attempts to interrupt the blokes: “I know I’m not on branding but I’ve got an idea for a name.
“Phil My Pie.”
Come again, luv.
“Phil. My. Pie.”
A suggestion that, in terms of killing a meat brand, could probably have been beaten only by Piegasm, Pork Trap or Phil My Hole.
Filled or not, though, Raj gave focus and momentum to an Apprentice series that has been struggling ever since week one, when we learned the BBC’s “diverse and inclusive” line-up contained not a single candidate from Scotland, Wales nor Northern Ireland, but did feature a toxic bigot called Asif Munaf, who’d called Zionism a “Godless satanic cult”.
He refused to go without a fight as well, and by the time the anti-Semitic stench finally cleared, in week three, it was already obvious this 18th series was a tainted brand lacking the golden characters and tasks that had turned it into one of the greatest reality shows of all time.
Only one episode, in fact, could be described as a cast-iron classic, the home shopping channel task, in week nine, which had Raj gazing into the camera, like a cult member, saying, “wow, wow wow wow,” and “wow” again.
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The absolute banker for The Apprentice usually, of course, is the penultimate episode of interviews with Linda Plant, Claude Littner and Lord Sugar’s other “trusted advisers”.
Indeed, normally, it’s an absolute bloodbath, with two of last year’s semi-finalists, Dani Donovan and Victoria Goulbourne, even leaving Karren Brady’s room in tears.
EXC Inside Apprentice winner Joseph Valente’s stunning car history, including ‘spaceship’ Ferrari – and why he’ll never buy a supercar
This time round, however, everyone except the heroic Claude Littner, was pulling their punches or indulging the sob stories and almost going out of their way to flatter egos that needed absolutely no flattering, least of all Tre’s.
I cannot say for sure, obviously, if some mental health zealot at the BBC knobbled them in order to spare the precious little lambs’ feelings, but it’s a huge mistake if they did.
Because it all just adds to the feeling I’ve had since week one that the best days of The Apprentice have come and long since gone and it should be put out to grass before the BBC ruins the show and the happy memories it’s provided.
Only a fool, then, could possibly have lost the £250,000 prize money. Luckily for Rachel, Phil was that fool
Ally Ross
Before the dawn of that sad day, however, Lord Sugar had to pretend he’s got the new Bill Gates on his hands at the final, where it was Phil’s prestige pies versus Rachel’s chain of “inclusive” Yorkshire gyms.
A classic old Britain versus new Britain encounter that forced you to take sides and had me backing Team Phil all the way and even beyond the eye-watering moment Raj shrieked: “My pie’s collapsing.”
You didn’t need to be a psychic, either, to sense that Lord Sugar fancied a part-share in a Harrogate gymnasium about as much as he fancied starting every day by doing a bums and tums class with Jeremy Corbyn.
Only a fool, then, could possibly have lost the £250,000 prize money.
Luckily for Rachel, Phil was that fool and effectively sealed his fate when he told Sugar, of all people: “There’s more to running a business than profit.”
A huge shame, as I’ve not seen anything quite as stirring, this series, as the opening words of Phil’s pitch to his fellow pie magnates at that final.
“Let me take you back to 1933 Bognor Regis, that is when the first Prestige pie was crafted.”
Phil, you had me at Bognor.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
WINNING Combination, Omid Djalili: “Near Newcastle, what Tyneside town sits at the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall?”
Ola: “Cornwall.”
Celebrity Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “In August 2023, which German football club signed Tottenham and England striker Harry Kane?”
Poppy O’Toole: “Leicester City.”
The Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In celebrities, which Australian entertainer was best known for his comic character Dame Edna Everage?”
Guz Khan: “Madge from Coronation Street.”
Romesh: “In Australian geography, which precious metal goes before Coast in the name of a city in Queensland known for its beaches?”
Charlie Hedges: “Ivory.”
Random irritations
THE pitiful sight of BBC1’s terminally compromised Have I Got News For You desperately trying to defend Angela Rayner, rather than doing its satirical job.
The Sky Planner losing its mind over Live At The Apollo “with the awesome Sindhu Vee”.
The absolute political farce of Labour’s Ed Balls interviewing Labour’s Ed Miliband on the hopelessly biased Good Morning Britain.
And that foghorning oaf Big Zuu using his BBC1 propaganda trip to Mecca to claim: “There’s a beautiful side to Saudi Arabia.”
’Cos there’s another side that murders journalists and executes gay people and women’s rights campaigners, so I’ll give it a miss, ta.
TV name of the week. Courtesy of ITVBe’s Love Island Games, I now know the Australian version not only has an Islander called Grant Crapp, it’s also got a Callum Hole as well.
So you can’t pretend you don’t know exactly where the show’s heading.
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AT the start of Channel 4’s two-part How To Be A Man, host Danny Dyer was stumped by his own question: “Is there a war on masculinity? Fack knows.”
So he went off to interview a toxic TikToker called Ed Matthews, which was “fackin’ weird”, followed it up by talking to MP Ben Bradley, who was asked: “Are we all being tarred with the same fackin’ brush?”
And then visited a men’s refuge. An experience Danny, right, described as “a fackin’ revelation”, but still left him wondering: “If we should just tell men to be fackin’ men.”
Finally, 27 F-bombs after it started, Danny felt ready to address the big question again: “What’s the answer to all of this? I don’t know the fackin’ answers.”
So there’s another two hours of my life I fackin’ ain’t getting back.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week.
Love Island Games: “I’m Maya Jama and this is what you’ve been waiting for.”
Pointless Celebrities, Alexander Armstrong: “David (Potts) and Georgia (Steel), you’re going to have to come back and play again, please. We’d love that.”
And Celebrity Bake Off, Adam Hills: “I’m really glad I’m a comedian.”
Though you’ve got to admire his optimism.
LOVE Island Games, Callum Hole: “I am very spontaneous. What’s the word? Not monogamy. It’s the thing where you do the same thing every week. What’s the word? Monopoly? Motobulously?”
Moronically.
Lookalike of the week
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THIS week’s winner is Hannah Waddingham and Van from Human Resources.
Sent in by Bailey James.
TV Gold
CHANNEL 4’s Night Coppers.
A new BBC sitcom called Mammoth, on Beeb Two, which actually managed to make me smile not once but twice.
And the slow-burning brilliance of Blue Lights, which I still think made a big mistake killing off its best character, Gerry Cliff, at the end of the first series and has to pay jarring lip service to wokery during episode five of the second.
But it remains superbly written and acted and as darkly funny as the great city of Belfast itself (Monday, 9pm, BBC1).
Great sporting insights
JAMIE REDKNAPP: “At The Masters, someone will miss a six-foot putt that nine times out of ten they’d score.”
Clinton Morrison: “Anything can happen but I don’t think it will.”
And Lee Hendrie: “It’s all about who comes out on top of that left-hand side on the right-hand side.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
It's all about greed
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EVER since the weekend, ITV’s been crowing about the 5.3million viewers who watched the last-ever episode of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.
Why? At the turn of the decade it boasted 11million, then two things happened.
At roughly the same point BBC1 was getting its act together, with Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, The Wheel and Gladiators, Takeaway fell headfirst into the product placement trap and started monetising almost every single part of the format.
The hosts could still charm their way through a lot of it and there were always moments of brilliance, like Ding Dong, That’s My Doorbell.
But as a direct result of the network’s greed, the show became lazy, bloated, celeb-driven and very occasionally unpleasant, as you possibly noticed with Saturday Get Out Of Me Ear: The Revenge, which was a hidden-camera torment without taste, humour or end.
Irony always survives, though, and the boys brought the curtains down with their own audience-dedicated version of McFly’s It’s All About You, featuring lyrics so cheesy and at odds with ITV’s true priority they can’t really complain if someone finishes it off for them.
“We’re so sad to say goodbye. Twenty years have flown by.”
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Terms and conditions still apply. It’s sod all about you.
- THE column returns on May 3. But far more importantly, so does TV’s best show, Clarkson’s Farm, on Amazon Prime.