Some time yesterday, in a TV studio in Hammersmith, West London, which doubles as “the boardroom”, that great grumpy garden gnome Sir Alan Sugar finally chose his Apprentice, after 12 weeks of bitching, backstabbing and surplus-chicken buying. The climactic moment was edited and added to the main part of the final, which has already been filmed. The BBC, keen to beat their previous audience record of 4.8 million for last week’s semi-final, is desperately hoping it can keep a lid on the result before it is screened tonight.
Who are we to ruin it? Today, though, for the diehard anorak (who, me?), we bust open a few other secrets of The Apprentice, such as that when a contestant is finally fired, he or she does see the others again. That we could have liked Syed if the BBC had told the whole story. That when they walk, shame-faced to the waiting cab, all is not as it seems. And that the secretary “Jenny” is not Sir Alan’s assistant at all.
The final is broken down into three parts: a task at Tower Bridge for which the finalists Ruth Badger and Michelle Dewberry are reunited with the fired apprentices; a report on their working for six months for two of Sugar’s companies (which the BBC tried to keep secret); and the final boardroom confrontation. On Monday, I spoke to both women — or, if you’re a fan, “the Badger” and “that really quiet, pretty one who’s quite scary in some indefinable way”.
They were chatty but had a PR rottweiler in tow and at the end of the phone I sensed wagging fingers when I asked about their private lives. Badger, in her best blocked-drain Brummie, belted back: “I’ve no comment to make about that.” (She sounded like a very butch Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques.) She added: “I would like to walk down the street in my ordinary clothes and not have people jump over walls to look at me. I’m looking forward to the start of Big Brother. I’ll be so ‘five minutes ago’.”
She did say that her parents and grandparents were “absolutely devastated” that the tabloids had outed her as a lesbian, revealing that she squired two girlfriends behind her husband’s back. Dewberry accepts that stories about her sister Fiona dying after a fall from a tower block, “are part of my past and I can’t get away from it”. True to the spirit of the show, both women plan to sell their personal stories to the highest bidder.
That’s the thing with The Apprentice: the show, which won a Bafta for best TV feature at the weekend, manages to be upscale and trashy. As a reality show that majors on business rather than bed-hopping, it has a figleaf of Reithian propriety about it. A colleague’s children watch it and apparently learn something about buying and selling. A friend who works in Whitehall reports that it is discussed at departmental meetings.
Yet it also has tabloid appeal. It is deliberately cast to have villains (Syed, Jo), clashing personalities and, of course, those Colosseum-tense final boardrooms, rich in drama and blood-letting. This year there’s also been sex (a rumoured affair between Syed and Michelle, which neither has denied). We wondered how Syed survived so long, given his absurd posturing and weaselling, and how Jo’s gurning, mad laughter and emotional swings didn’t end with the men in white coats.
Despite all this manipulated melodrama, the series editor, Dan Adamson, maintains that the editing is fair and that “Sir Alan especially” would never let The Apprentice become a sexed-up reality show. However one ousted contestant, Sharon McAllister, says: “It’s bull**** to describe it as a business programme. It’s entertainment. Everything is edited according to Sir Alan’s final decision. I was made out to be a whinger and I’ m not.”
Why do the two finalists want to work for Sir Alan? Dewberry earns £100,000 a year as a self-employed telecoms executive while Badger already owns two companies. Both women talk about admiring the grouch for being “self-made” as they are. Neither liked school that much. Badger’s dad bought her Premium Bonds, rather than dolls. At junior school she would buy rubbers and sell them to classmates for £1 and bank her pocket money. “From a young age money turned me on,” she says. “I wanted to get out there and make a million.” Dewberry used to collect school registration forms and holiday brochures and make people fill them in. Badger worked her way through sales jobs until she landed at Compass Finance Group plc, and helped to increase turnover from £3 million to £13 million. Dewberry was on the checkout at Kwik Save and through force of will has fulfilled her ambition of “having my own house, my own security”.
Dewberry, says Badger, conceivably makes the more likely apprentice. “She’s mouldable, whereas I’ve given up a golden career for the chance. For both of us it’s about learning. I’d still have done it if the cameras weren’t there.” If she doesn’t win, Badger will accept that she’s had a “damn good time”. Michelle says quietly: “I might become the face of Kwik Save.” Both women are good friends. If they lose, they’re happy to lose to the other, “though we’re chalk and cheesecake, and I kick her a*** when it comes to business,” Badger says.
Dewberry gets worked up only when asked if she feels misrepresented by the producers. “They underplayed me on screen all the way through so it would be a real shock when I made it into a final,” she says. And in that curdled, sad monotone adds: “I’m not as dull and quiet as I’ve been edited to seem.”
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That inscrutability (together with Sir Alan being impressed by her supporting her family) have won her a place in the final. Badger is happy with her portrayal, but says she’s not “as harsh as they made me out. I am passionate and hard in business but I’m light-hearted and friendly too.”
