BUSINESS SCHOOL

CLAUDE LITTNER TELLS US WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THIS YEAR’S CANDIDATES…

Iam going to throw people under the bus, am going to throw people over the bus, I’m going to get on the bus, take the wheel and get that investment.” That’s just one example of the waffle spouted by the candidates on the latest series of The

Apprentice – but at least we have Lord Sugar’s trusted advisor Claude Littner to balance things out by talking some sense. Inside TV spoke to Claude about the upcoming series to find out what we should expect…

What did you make of this year’s hopefuls?

There are a lot of characters, a lot of arguments and people who somehow or other just don’t get on, and people who obviously establish friendships and work very well together. It’s the usual mixture of everything you can imagine going right and going wrong…

What can you tell us about the first task?

The first task is about burgers, and it’s quite complex. It needed a lot of organisation in terms of deciding what kind of burgers to make, and that would influence the price they could charge. And then they

had the task of actually making the burgers. I thought that would be easy, but there’s plenty of opportunity for complete catastrophe! How much does the stress of the process affect the contestants’ bad decisions? It’s more the timescale in which they have to assimilate the information and then perform the task! On more than one occasion I’ve thought to myself, ‘That’s definitely not the way I would do it, that’s bound for failure!’. But sure enough, somehow or other they manage to pull it round… Would you have been any good as a contestant when you were starting out? I don’t think I would fare well because I’m too controversial. I’d be wanting to get my own way, and I wouldn’t want to listen to other people because I’ve always thought that I know best – when I don’t, by the way! So I’m impressed even with the ones who fall at the first hurdle, because they’ve had a go and given it their best!