Fortune favours the brave when hopefuls enter the Dragons’ lair
I love to witness success but this is just a thinking person’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
For the unenlightened, Dragons’ Den gives inventors and entrepreneurs a platform to showcase their offering to some of Britain’s premier business people in a bid to secure funding and guidance in exchange for a percentage of their company.
The televisual equivalent of the Big Issue seller, if you will, and the excuses by the Dragons (the allegedly scary business bods) for not purchasing are much the same; I’ve already got one, not my thing, my arms have fallen off – though I think the latter one may be just me.
It is at this juncture that I should point out that the aforementioned periodical is a very fine and informative publication with an excellent philosophy at heart put together by some brilliant writers over the years – and me.
Back in the Dragons’ lair, those angling for precious pounds most demonstrate their suitability via a combination of business acumen, profit, potential and character.
They would appear to fall into several categories: nailedon certs, the tearful and ready to relate their journey through adversity at the drop of a hat to the interested or anyone with ears, the shysters, deluded, laughable and my particular favourite – the beardy.
It is an unwritten rule that if you are peddling environmentally aware products or propositions, beer, health supplements or anything remotely bicycle-related, you must appear on primetime TV fully bearded up. The same rule applies to the men too.
Now, you may not be a business-minded soul but don’t let that put you off. This is indeed entertaining fare. What are you going to amuse yourself with instead?
Salad-dodgers trampling their way through ballroom dancing, the culinary challenged wasting perfectly good ingredients – the only saving grace there being the distinct possibility they will somehow ignite themselves or choke on their own inedible and unedifying concoctions.
That just leaves children’s TV, for which you will need to consume copious quantities of illegal substances to understand unless you’re eight years old.
Or sport, which if it is golf or cricket you will soon be in the realms of sleepy time. That leaves football, which after the weekend, as a Liverpool supporter, is a sore subject.
The current crop of Dragons, now you’re interested, feature Peter Jones – business titan, Deborah Meadon – serial entrepreneur, Touker Suleyman – fashion retail tycoon, Sara Davies – crafting queen and Steven Bartlett – e-commerce supremo.
The episode I viewed on catch-up, to take my mind off the travails of the UK’s most successful football team, had a guest judge – former Manchester United footballer and perennially annoying pundit, Gary Neville. Thanks Gaz, just what I needed – I’m still wrestling my foot from my flatscreen as I type. What a shame nobody came on trying to flog 7-Up.
Over the show’s 19 years on the box there have been many successes, Levi Root’s Reggae Reggae Sauce being widely considered to be the Den’s flagship investment to date. It’s estimated to be worth £30m, having received £50,000 for 40 per cent equity from former Dragon Richard Farleigh and Peter Jones.
Inevitably there are the ones that got away. The Dragons famously rejected the Tangle Teezer, a nifty little brush, designed to detangle knotty hair, that was called a “waste of time”. It has made its inventor £70m.
Loving the series as I do, there is much fun to be derived from watching the contestants’ eager little faces crumble, along with their dreams, as rejection is hurled their way, often with all the grace of a house brick.
Jocularity also abounds on the frequent occasions that the hopefuls freeze mid pitch, the words stuck in their throat, their expression that of a carrot cruncher caught in the headlights.
It’s almost as though the flow of bon mots is overcome by embarrassment at the prospect of offering one per cent of a profitless venture for £100,000 of Dragons’ cash. People actually do this with alarming frequency, frequently prior to their rapid exit from the show, their hutzpah only equalled by their greed and stupidity.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to witness success too but really this is just a thinking person’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. So make the grasping failures eat a kangaroo’s unmentionables and have done with it. I’d pay good money to see that.