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The Apprentice’s Rottweiler? He’s really... cuddly Claude
Lord Sugar’s right-hand man Claude Littner is a big softie at heart – and you’ll never guess who taught him to be so mean!
Claude Littner, otherwise known as Lord Sugar’s Rot twei ler on The Apprentice, is the master of unsettling someone in an interview, most memorably to the point where they try to exit the room via the window rather than the door. ‘To be fair, I didn’t know he was going to do that. You couldn’t have scripted it if you’d wanted to,’ chuckles Claude, 67, recalling his unforgettable encounter with the hapless Solomon Akhtar from the last series.
Poor Solomon, who’d been doing so well, had the audacity to pitch up for the all-important interview round with a business plan that was, according to Claude, ‘just a load of pictures’. In a rage, Claude told Solomon he was ‘taking the p***’ and threw him out. The poor guy was so shocked he couldn’t find the door. Yes, as Claude observes today, it was ‘TV magic’, but was it typical of how he operates? ‘Yes and no,’ he says. ‘He did infuriate me. I was so disappointed with that business plan. But to be honest, once I’d sent him packing I regretted it. But everything is filmed in one take. You can’t say, “Come back and let’s talk a bit more about this.”’
In the last series Claude came out from behind the interviewer’s desk to take on the role of Lord Sugar’s righthand man too, replacing Nick Hewer, but he made a strategic decision not to be as nice. ‘Nick did kind of have this physical interaction with them but I didn’t want to give them any comfort that they were doing the right thing, or even the wrong thing, so I try not to engage with them,’ he says. ‘I try not to make eye contact. I don’t smile. If they say “Good morning” I ignore them.’
It turns out he learned the art of the iceberg approach from Lord Sugar himself, when he was interviewed in real life for a senior post in his company. He re-enacts the encounter today, turning his chair away from me so as better to ignore me. ‘It’s unsettling, isn’t it? He’d invited me but what happened was a non-interview as far as I was concerned. He had my CV in front of him but he didn’t look at it. He didn’t engage with me. He didn’t actually look at me. He seemed to be looking into the distance like this. The difference is I’m talking to you now as I’m doing this. He didn’t even talk.’
It sounds excruciating. Did they sit in silence then? ‘Oh, I talked. I said, “Shall I tell you about myself?” and he said, “Go on then,” still not looking at me. I felt I had to take control of the situation otherwise it would have been both of us sitting there not talking. After a while I thought, “This is a waste of time,” so I stopped talking and with that he got up and walked out. Then as I was leaving the marketing director came running after me saying, “He liked you. You’ve got the job.”’
The pai r have since worked together – on and off – for 20 years and Claude now considers him a friend, of sorts. ‘I do like him a lot now. I’d say we’re friends, but he’s not your typical friend.’ Does he send you a birthday card? ( The chances are slim given that Lord Sugar once sent his own wife a birthday card signed ‘From Alan Sugar’.) ‘Of course not, but I don’t expect that from him. He’s not the kissing and cuddling type either.’
Still, Claude rushes to Lord Sugar’s defence if you suggest he’s TV’s resident Mr Grumpy. ‘I can understand how people meeting him for the first time might be intimidated by his brashness, or by the fact that he’s not overly friendly. But he’s the same with everyone. He’s pretty evenly cold.’
In fact, Claude, the father of two grown-up sons, is the exact opposite of his on-screen persona – twinkling rather than thundering and actually a bit of a softie. He’s very sweet about Karren Brady, his Apprentice counterpart. ‘She’s brilliant. And her notes are so much better than mine. Her handwriting’s immaculate and she makes bullet points. I just scrawl, then go, “Er, I can’t see what I’ve written here.”’ He doesn’t go for the jugular either when talking about the new batch of Apprentice candidates. In fact he’s extraordinarily kind. ‘Well yes, you do get the daft ones, but mostly they’re just... daft. It’s not an easy ride for them. I know viewers watch and think, “I could do that” but actually, no, they couldn’t.’
He does unsettle me once during our interview, but for completely unexpected reasons. It comes after he’s been talking about his battle with a particularly aggressive cancer when he was told his chances of survival were minimal. He’s been cancer-free since 2000, and it’s when he’s telling me what the years since have meant that he starts to cry, and has to pause for a moment to compose himself. ‘Without being too sentimental about the whole thing, I’ve had the benefit of seeing my children grow up and my grandchildren be born. When you’re seriously ill like that, and come out the other side, you can’t help but be changed by it. You realise what’s important in life.’ His rise to the top in business followed a different path to Lord Sugar’s. He spent his twenties as an accountant at Unilever but when he was 28 his immediate boss left and the new managers didn’t regard him as highly. ‘My situation seemed flaky so I decided to get out and set up my own business in menswear, thinking I could always go back to corporate life. My wife wasn’t happy with me giving up the pension.’ Over the years he’s developed a reputation for being a whizz at going into a failing business and turning it around. He feels youngsters now are too quick to feel they must work for themselves. ‘Running a business is lonely and stressful and the probability of it failing is quite great,’ he says. But don’t shows like The Apprentice foster the idea that anyone with half a brain can do it? ‘Quite the opposite. I think it shows people it’s bloody tough. Even winning is no guarantee of success.’ In many ways he’s an old-school business type. He doesn’t agree with paternity leave, relaxed dress codes or ping-pong tables in the foyer. ‘I go into lots of businesses and they have areas where you can go for a nap or play table tennis. Some people turn up in flip-flops. I mean, I get that it’s the way things are done now, but I’m glad I don’t have to work like that.’ So there’s no flip-flop policy chez Lord Sugar? ‘I can clarify that,’ he says, face poker- straight. ‘Flip-flops are not his thing.’ The Apprentice returns on Thursday, 9pm, BBC1.