Nut milk? Has Sugar’s Apprentice gone nuts?
Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out is on Wednesday on BBC Four.
HERE’S an early Christmas present for you. It’s boxed, gift-wrapped and has a beaming photo of Lord Sugar on the outside smiling like Tottenham just won the Champions League. It was the “interviews round” of
(BBC One, Wednesday) and it’s something to relish in the TV schedules every year. It is also the closest thing to a blood sport in reality TV, especially since everyone decided to be terribly nice to each other on this year’s
(ITV, Sunday).
You’d think you can’t be too ambitious when competing for the patronage of Lord Sugar. But no one told aspiring eco-friendly cleaning magnate Khadija (who believes she may “have a problem with shouting”), who was taken down spectacularly in the most satisfying episode of The Apprentice in the series.
As each contender took a lift ride up and down the plush Leadenhall Building in the City of London between interrogations, often choking back crocodile tears, I was snorting and laughing at 60 minutes of fine reality TV. You don’t hear that often.
All the while Khadija was thinking, “I could probably clean this 20-storey building in half an hour with a damp cloth and an old mop”. In arguably the best line of the series, Khadija, who is already turning over more than £70,000 a year in Cambridgeshire, was practically wiped out by human rottweiler Claude Littner with this gem: “You haven’t even conquered Peterborough yet!”
But if a cleaning empire doesn’t excite you, what about “nut milk”? It’s one of the “fastest growing areas in non-dairy”.
Cows have had it too good for too long but also are overdue a sleep-in.
Former law graduate Camilla has been making nut milk in her kitchen, sorry, “commercial kitchen” and is now ready to go big. She was even threatening to buy a second Nutri-Bullet. Then the sky’s the limit.
That’s the sort of thinking that always impresses a man like Sugar, who once gave us the “emailer phone” for people who like to do two things at once. But Camilla insisted to her doubters that she had already clocked up three months’ experience during which she made
Celebrity The Apprentice I’m A Strictly Come Dancing
judges. Now we have
(BBC One, Sunday) voted by the people. Or do we?
The judges still maintain control over this format until the final. This is wrong. It should be the People’s Strictly. I spoke with a contestant who went out in the latter stages. He wouldn’t say so but he was obviously gutted he couldn’t make the big finish.
Strictly must stop casting celebrities who can dance competently and find contestants who need to learn to dance. This series saw the judges save Ashley Roberts three times after she was in the bottom two for failing to win enough public support. What a fix.
To be honest, the format can’t have been helping her confidence either. But equally, why cast someone who can dance so well?
We have professional dancers for that. The contestant who went out in the “latter stages” agreed that the judges should be sidelined from the quarter finals. I reiterate. Make it a People’s Strictly.
FMrs Wilson
INALLY, (BBC One, Tuesday) surprised everyone, I expect. Without a clue where this drama was going, but waiting for another wifelet to appear from somewhere, Alice Wilson’s descent into what was a real personal crisis was superbly captured by her granddaughter actress Ruth.
The scene in which Mrs Wilson thumped away at the very pillars of her local chapel should surely be enough for Ruth Wilson to receive a nomination for a Bafta.
Surrounded by lies and liars, it’s little wonder that devout Mrs Wilson turned to the church.
It appeared that she found some peace and managed to repair her relationship with her two sons, at least as portrayed in the drama. We will never know, however, whether Alec was set up by a double agent, as alleged, as his file has never been released.
Does it matter? Again, the security services covered themselves in glory, with Fiona Shaw’s wistful, airy performance as a handler portraying the brutal insensitivity that has come to characterise the services. It’s all still rather a game for them. Pity anyone who wants to find the truth.