Sugar serves up scorn, scalding hot
AFTER LAST week’s sackings, you could be forgiven for wondering how on earth you’d summon up the will to continue watching The Apprentice. How to survive without Charles’ King Solomon-esque capacity for wise hindsight? And yet somehow the show must go on.
With Charles gone, the vacuum for resident Jewish contrarian was more than filled this week by Lord Sugar and his trusty lieutenant Claude Littner.
Both were on top form, casting derisory looks at the candidates as they attempted to rustle up and brand recipe kits — a task that ultimately saw Joanna dressed in a giant pea suit with Claude rolling his eyes at every poor decision made by Team Vitality.
And he wasn’t short on opportunities. The team was led by Harrison, in his first outing as project manager. Harrison’s big business idea relates to the healthy food market, so this challenge should have been child’s play. But paired with Michaela, who was having trouble relinquishing power after having to backseat drive Charles last week, it was a recipe for disaster.
Trying their skills in the kitchen, neither turned out to be a latter-day Evelyn Rose, and not just because of the decidedly unkosher yoghurt in their chicken curry. “It’s
Lord Sugar: derision supposed to be healthy but there isn’t a vegetable in sight,” groaned Claude, while Lord Sugar looked baffled by the idea of a nutritious curry in general. The culinary geniuses in Team Graphene, meanwhile, went for the gourmet consumer with a slightly more Jewish-friendly salmon risotto. Sarah, impressive thus far but less so on this task, took charge, choosing to call the brand “Gourmet crusaders”, despite concern that the name sounded a tad warmongery. In the kitchen, it was a case of too many cooks because Elizabeth had to share the stage with someone other than herself (James, who once again demonstrated his inability to take control of a situation). In a low point even for this show, the pair squabbled over whose responsibility it was to chop an onion. You don’t get that kind of behaviour on Bake Off. When it came to Graphene’s pitch, perhaps the best that could be said was that nobody left with food poisoning. “Even Oliver Twist wouldn’t ask for more of this,” snorted Lord Sugar. The panel of experts agreed, handing Vitality a win and leaving Lord Sugar with all the ingredients to give Graphene a good telling off in the boardroom. Bushra was castigated for doing a Charles and sniping from the sidelines, and ultimately, she went the same way as her erstwhile colleague with Lord Sugar giving her the bullet. Chutzpah of the week: Harrison, for securing a win despite facing the wrath of Claude for his disastrous management.