Matthew eats… Dragons Den

Dragons Den has been around donkeys of years, had several changes of line up yet still pulls in the punters. Bar me, who has never watched it. Until recently, when my other half insisted I would love it.

The premise is that would-be business owners pitch their products or services to five business professionals aka ‘the dragons’. They want investment, and in exchange will part with a share of the company. They are not limited to one dragon, as two or three could share the investment. Shares of the business are also up for a negotiation. In fact, the only rule is once a dragon says they are out, they are out for good.

This is one of those shows ideal for casual watching with your other half or family. You can debate is the idea good enough to invest, is the business valued right, do you like the person pitching etc. Watching the cocky and arrogant stumble over figures or taking a bad line in negotiating is almost as good as seeing the genuinely decent ones get a good deal.

You will also quickly get a favourite dragon. I personally back Deborah Meaden, who seems to specialise in ethical businesses but doesn’t let a good cause get in the way of being savvy. I also warm to Steven Bartlett, who for saying he is so young can already spot the ideas with the most potential. Less so Touker Suleyman, who seems old fashioned compared to his other dragons, although there is always a place for those who know the high street.

Overall, it’s a decent enough way to kill an hour. I wouldn’t obsess over it, but it has enough interest for you to go back to it. And it has quite a bit of life in it yet.

Matthews eats… The Apprentice

Once again, we have reached The Apprentice season. Like so many of the most-successful shows, it has resisted too many format tweaks. Yes, there is a double or triple elimination each series, but that is par the course for this show (unlike GBBO, where such hi-jinks should never be used). Simply a bunch of people wanting some of Lord Sugar’s money proving they have got what it takes to go into business with him.

So far, much of it is what you expect. There are hideous products being made, including a rather phallic-shaped lolly. We have our traditional ‘oh my God how can they not know that?’ moments (take your pick from think a rhino is an elephant or not knowing when World War 2 started). There is even our traditional villain – step forward Lotti.

Yet something has been gnawing at me. In fact, it has been for the last couple of years. There are some tasks, that yes, I can see the purpose of. The buying task is clearly a test not only of negotiating, but also research and planning. But some other tasks are so specialist that unless someone on the team works in that industry, it is a real slog.

Ok, so the candidates are tested on their ability to sell, make and market, all skills relevant to business. But does making an ice lolly really tell you much about if someone can make a good pillow? Does marketing an electronic bike give you a genuine picture of how they will market their service or product? There’s a reason why when we get to the final two the quality jumps up considerably, it is that the candidates get to pitch their passions.

Likewise, I am increasingly cynical at some of Lord Sugar’s decisions. Big personalities, like Thomas and Ryan-Mark, are staying more because they make good screen time than for their business acumen. All of which gets covered up by Lord Sugar claiming it is his instinct.

Yet I am still shamelessly addicted to it. I want to see Lotti fall. I want to know if Iasha is worthy of her 100% record so far. Most of all, I want to see Karren and Claude get exasperated at everyone. Best of all, Tom Allen is now presenting You’re Fired, which is just glorious. The show hasn’t been handed its P45 yet, but a bit more authenticity wouldn’t go amiss.

Matthew eats… The Apprentice

If you watch something over and over again, no matter how much you enjoy it, you inevitably start asking questions. In the case of drama or comedy, it could be plot holes or plausibility. Why has a character done x? How could event y have happened? What about thing z? This is perhaps why the best shows only last a few series, because the writers know that in order to reduce these questions they are working in a tighter framework.

Reality TV has a similar problem. Big Brother lost its spark as it drifted ever further away from being about normal people. Likewise, The Apprentice has perhaps lot its way a little as it has become ever clearer that there are people on it who use it as a passport to fame instead of furthering their business.

Because there is always one. They tend to leave about week seven or eight, when it is no longer plausible for Lord Sugar to keep them in, as they have shown they are incapable of running a business. Last year it was semi-professional ‘lad’ Andrew, who used his 15 minutes of fame to go on Celebrity Big Brother and date a C-lister. My money this year is on Kurran, a wannabe actor who can’t act but is a fan of grandiose statements about his genius.

Another problem with The Apprentice is some of the tasks feel deliberately designed to put candidates under ridiculous pressure which I’m not convinced reflects how business is done. For example, would somebody working in the advertising industry be expected to turn around a logo, advert and devise a presentation for an airline in 48 hours? Highly doubt it and you certainly wouldn’t be expecting with no knowledge of said industries to complete that workload.

Of course, there is the argument that this is all about seeing how people react to pressure. But seeing as many of the candidates are running their own businesses, you could argue they know all about pressure already. Lord Sugar could just as easily film them doing their normal jobs for 10 weeks rather than having them jump from gardening one minute to selling on TV shopping channels the next.

But then that wouldn’t be good TV would it? We want to see people flail and fail, having tetchy arguments about the price of plant pots along the way. And many of the eventual winners are actually successful post-show with their businesses. The right person does seem to win even if it takes a while to get there.

How much longer can the show last? Who knows. Once they have run out of ideas for tasks maybe, or Lord Sugar descends into senility perhaps. For now, we just need to sit back and take it all with a pinch of salt.

Matthew eats… The Apprentice

As autumn tightens its grip, it is time for the televising of The Annual Wankers’ Conference, I mean, The Apprentice. 18 so-called great entrepreneurial minds descend onto London to flap about for 12 weeks, all in the hope that an angry pensioner deems that they have jumped through enough hoops to invest in their business plan.

Whilst it makes great TV, in a practical sense it is all a bit daft. For a start, whilst we hope that these genuinely are 18 great ideas, we all know that even by the time we get down to the interview stage with the final five, only two at best actually work. You do come away from watching it fearing for the British economy if this is where our future lies.

But let’s not worry about that. Instead, we will bask in the glory of one of the greatest episodes of all times. The task was to design a room in a luxury hotel. Team Graphene (the girls) went for golf, while Team Vitality (the boys) plumped for Best of British Tourism. Both proved to be gloriously bad. The girls had a feature wall paper that seemed to resemble something closer to the inside of a spaceship off a cheap sci-fi show, and the boys decided to vomit colour and child-like drawings over the place.

Of course, what we really makes it are the applicants. The girls’ team included Elizabeth, who wielded a tape measure with such manic force she resembled a pass-agg version of Edna from The Incredibles. This was coupled with a tendency to interfere with everyone else’s work rather than do her own, angrily staring at her sub-team leader when reprimanded for doing so.

Meanwhile, on Vitality, maths genius Jeff refused to do any of the figures, insisting his history of break dancing meant he was destined to be a designer. We even got to see a little demonstration. If anyone has seen the American Dad episode where Steve tries to become a backing dancer, then you are in the right ball park. Meanwhile, the buying team went on a spending spree and, with Jeff busy proving he was the next Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, got the figures wrong.

Neither project manager was much cop. Bushra issued instructions but didn’t do any work, although considering what she did produce, that is probably a good thing. Ross tried his best, but spent the entire episode having to react to the problems caused by others. The girls won purely because their minimalist room had less wrong with it, although this was arguably because there was less in it to be wrong.

One of the most joyful moments of the episode was in the boardroom. Under fire for his performance, Ross committed the cardinal sin of telling Lord Sugar to shut up. To be fair he did it politely, but this is a no-no. Yet I actually agree with him – he was giving a fairly straight forward and eloquent answer yet was facing unnecessary hostility. Lord Sugar plays on the image of being the tough tycoon, but he would benefit from actually listening rather than steaming on at times.

So, do we have any decent candidates? Well, Michaela seems quite grounded. There are a few on both teams who have been fairly quiet that as numbers dwindle could step forward. Twelve weeks could knock some of them into shape enough. We best hope so. Because so far, I have little faith in most of them.

Matthew eats… The Apprentice

Different reality TV shows operate by different rules when setting criteria for contestants. The X Factor has never made any pretence of only selecting the best 12 singers, even if their justification for some of the acts making the live shows stretches credibility. The Great British Bake Off, on the other hand, relies on you believing that the final 12 are the best of the crop. Putting someone through just for entertainment value would ill serve their audience.

The Apprentice straddles between the two poles, veering slightly more towards the latter. A huge amount of the cache of the show is that these are all real business people and that Lord Sugar is only interested in the best. After all, his money and name are at stake every time.

If this is the case though, and these really are the best the audition process threw up, Sugar must be worried about now. Two episodes in and there seems to be very little genuine business acumen coming through. Of course, the first few weeks are always rough while nerves settle and the deadwood is removed. But this year it seems the contestants are particularly lacking in depth and skill.

The second episode was testament to this. Charged with creating an advertising campaign for Japanese denim, both teams committed a litany of errors around deadlines, logistics and failing to understand their market. Nobody had anything good to say, so it was unsurprising that both teams were judged failures by the boss.

Having said that, I have a certain degree of sympathy for them. Last year, this task revolved around cactus shampoo. The boys’ team latched onto the uniqueness of the product better than the girls and scored a convincing win. This time around, both teams made a stab at selling the Japanese angle to the jeans, albeit cackhandedly, only to be told by the grumpy teddy bear that the Oriental nature of the product was immaterial.

Anyway, with six candidates up for firing instead of just three, this seemed an ample opportunity for Sugar to remove a number of underperformers. There were solid cases for dismissal for five of them, ranging from being irritating, having a breakdown, and simply being non-existent. Yet just one departed, leaving some very underwhelming people in the process.

In fact, the biggest problem seems to be how few are actually speaking up right now. There are at least half a dozen candidates who seem to be content with being in the background. I genuinely couldn’t pick a winner right now. I don’t think I could even remember most of their names if pushed. Things best pick up soon, or Lord Sugar may find himself backing the least bad candidate to win, as opposed to the best.

Matthew eats… The Apprentice

Another year, another series of The Apprentice. I sometimes wonder if Lord Sugar genuinely gives a damn about investing in another business, or whether he just wants the screen time to help promote his latest book. Perhaps he just wants an excuse to yell at young people for a few weeks, or his wife wants him out the house so she can watch Loose Women in peace.

Regardless, he is back, as are all the shows key ingredients. Loud, bumptious business wonderkids? Check. Tasks that bear only the slightest resemblance to the real world of business? Check. Two ‘aides’, who glower on the side lines at every utterance out of the candidates mouths? Double check. Yes, like GBBO or Strictly, reliability is key to The Apprentice’s success.

This year appears to be a vintage year. There are enough decent candidates to make it look like at least some effort is being put in to match the premise of the show. David, Charlaine, Scott and even Richard have all had moments where you have been mildly impressed by them. True, they have also had some horrors, but it is rare for any candidate to be unblemished by the process.

There are also some nice rivalries stoking up. Richard and Joseph are currently doing a very testosterone fuelled dance around each other, with the former pointing out to the latter that he took himself off to France despite being unable to speak French, with Joseph retorting that Richard’s attempt to get a deal on cheese by playing the bumbling Englishman resulted in the price going up.

The real juicy one though is between Charlaine and Selina. The former has shown some good business sense – she was the only one of the girls to fully understand the cactus task and is half-decent at selling – while the latter appears to have attended the Katie Hopkins School of Charm, spending most of the tasks sulking. Rumour has it that this battle is going to turn particularly nasty, which will either make for compulsive or uncomfortable viewing.

One of the accidental delights of the show is the increasingly tenuous links between the location the candidates are summoned to and the task in hand. This week, Samuel Johnson’s house. A repeat of last year’s coach trip task? No. Invent a language based app? Of course not. Launch a spoof Twitter account of a historical figure? Too obvious. No, turns out Johnson had a cat, so the task was to sell pet products.

Sadly, this week spelt the end of my favourite. Ruth was one of the most eccentric figures in the programme’s history, with her jazzy suits, sparky catchphrases and relentless energy. She loves life and business not for money, but for the sheer buzz. She certainly knew how to flirt her way into selling people seafood salad. Sadly, luxury cat towers were a bit too much of a stretch. Yet she was such a beacon of joy I can’t help feeling the process will lack a bit of light now she is gone. Still, at least we have one hell of a cat fight to look forward to.