Music Banter - The Couch Potato: Trollheart's Televisual and Cinematic Emporium

And now, just to further enrage Batty... :D
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The UK version of the show went on the air one year after the original broadcast, and is produced by the same team. In place of Donald Trump we have “wide-boy” millionaire Alan Sugar, originally Sir Alan and later Lord Sugar. The format is basically the same, with a few differences along the way.

Season one, episode one

In place of Carol and George we have Margaret and Nick, Mountford and Hewer respectively, Sugar's eyes and ears on the teams. He also goes to great lengths to point out that he and he alone has the power to decide who will be fired, as if he's laying down a marker, to tell the BBC or whoever makes the programme that they will not tell him who is to be fired, that it might be better for viewing figures if this or that person got the bullet or was kept. It's clear he intends to maintain total and direct control over the show, and he sets his stall out from the very start. He also makes it clear he is not impressed by diplomas, degrees or any other paraphernalia. One of his catchphrases will become “I don't like bullshitters”, and he doesn't. If someone is making themselves out to be other than they are, or is exaggerating the truth, he will not stand for it. He's also the one to coin the phrase “hiding in the long grass” that I used in the US version (although Trump never mentions or intimates anyone is doing this) and while his US counterpart is seen as a tough-as-nails boss, in terms of the show, he's a pussycat compared to Sir Alan.

Right away he leaves the candidates under no illusions, telling them this is a “job interview from hell”. They should know what to expect, and if they fail to perform he will have no hesitation in kicking them out. He's an East End boy (grew up in the East End of London) and a market trader, unlike Trump, who is a real estate entrepreneur, and he is much more curt and to the point about the candidates than Trump is. He almost insults them, and in later episodes and seasons will. He makes no friends and accepts no attempts at currying favour: the only way to win this boss over is to win the task, and win it big. And keep winning. He will be drilling down into the details of every task with the teams, and there will be no hiding place. Some of the candidates may come to regret ever having signed up for this!

The first thing the candidates have to do, having been split up into the traditional women vs men teams, is pick a name, and though the men come up with theirs --- Impact --- pretty quickly, the women spend over an hour deliberating until they finally come up with... First Forte? What the fuck does that mean? Something is either your forte or it isn't; you don't have a first or second forte!

As for the task? Well, just as Trump took his people back to basics by selling lemonade on the streets of New York, Sugar wants his teams to sell flowers on the streets of London. Furnished with £500 seed (hah) money, they will go out in the morning and whoever sells the most and makes the most money will win. Saira, in charge of the women's team, seems to be locking horns with another member, Miranda, shooting down her suggestions and cutting her off all the time, making it seem like she's not but in fact being quite rude and bossy (though I guess she is the PM and has to take control) while Tim, leading Impact, listens to suggestions including going door to door selling the flowers,

The Task
At Covent Garden flower market both teams have the opportunity to buy the flowers they want, at the best prices they can manage. The boys, on advice from one of the professional sellers here, go for lilies, while the girls seem confused and divided, and are late finishing, with many an argument on the way. As he often will do, Sugar has set up a pitch for each team, this time in Portobello Market, from where they can sell as well as do their other sales door to door or on the street. But when they arrive, all they see is a blank space. There is nothing to sell on, no stall, no tables, no display. The girls, arriving first, have used their charm to get a table from a nearby butcher shop so the boys decide not to compete for now, and go door to door instead. Matthew, who lives nearby, directs them to the places he believes they will be most successful.

As it turns out, whether intentional or not, Sir Alan has chosen for them spots in a fairly ordinary market, and there's little or no footfall. Nobody is interested and so the girls are having a hard time selling. On the other team, Paul turns out to be a selling phenomenon, charming, cajoling or wooing everyone he meets into buying the flowers. Even the traditional English downpour can't dampen his technique, and the girls realise (after two hours) that they're getting nowhere at the market, and move on. They begin to sell on the street, but Miranda makes an executive decision to offload some of her stock on a local shopkeeper at below cost price. That's never going to go down well!

As sales begin to move for the girls Saira seems to be the main seller, and as the day begins to wind down she decides they should head to King's Cross railway station, while the boys go to Baker Street. Probably a bad move, as they both find out to their cost. People on the way to or from trains are not interested in buying flowers. Nevertheless, the girls do manage to sell out before the deadline, as, a short time later, do the boys, but only by slashing prices to the bone, a tactic the girls have not resorted to (other than Miranda's earlier unsanctioned below-cost sale).

And now for a word...
This is a section I didn't run in the US version, because quite frankly neither George nor Carol really speak to the camera during the task, beyond the odd wink or look or smile or grimace. Nick and Margaret, however, frequently give their considered view as the task progresses, so here I'll note whenever they say anything about it that I believe is worth mentioning.

Nick (following First Forte): “They're running out of time. There are some good ideas in there, but they need to start buying or they'll be in trouble.”
(He's referring to the scatterbrain approach of the girls, who are trying to decide what they need to buy to “dress up” their bouquets --- ribbons, bags etc --- while not actually concentrating enough on buying the actual flowers.)

Nick: “I think they've got confused. This is an ordinary street market but there's no traffic here. It's a residential place, local people come here to buy their vegetables. I think they're going to stay here for about twenty minutes and get disappointed.”

Nick (yeah, Margaret is keeping schtumm it would seem!): “The only salesperson there is Saira. It's not pretty to watch, but it's effective. It's almost physical. It's a bit confrontational, but she's shifting the merchandise.”

The Boardroom
I should point out, there is a significant difference here to the US version. Whereas Trump's failed candidates can return to their jobs, a condition of Sugar's process is that everyone must give up their job to be selected, meaning that whoever is picked eventually is immediately available for work. However this also means that the other thirteen candidates are now out of a job, unless some under-the-counter/gentleman's agreement deal has been worked out, of which we are not advised. To all intents and purposes though, fourteen people leave their jobs to vie for this one, and thirteen are going to find themselves unemployed at the end. It does add a level of seriousness and tension to the show, and is I guess meant to ensure that the candidates work even harder to be the chosen one.

We'll find too that unlike Trump, Sugar will have much more to say in the Boardroom. He will use it as an opportunity to slap people down, point out mistakes and basically make his displeasure, if any, known to all concerned. He will not pull any punches and will be the star of the show in every way. If Trump is the kindly but somewhat eccentric old uncle, Sugar is the drunk, cursing, snarling one who throws things at people and tells them to get out. He is, really, not a very nice man and he doesn't care a toss who knows it. He's not here to make friends, or create a TV persona or market a brand: there's no “Sugar Ice” (!) “Sugar Cola” or “Sugar Dogfood”, unlike his American counterpart, who has his name and face on virtually everything he sells or is involved in. Sugar has one aim, and that is to make money, or in this case, have people make money for him and in the process show him who is worthy of becoming his apprentice. In this, he is both less, and more, of a showman than Donald Trump.

In a total reversal of fortune compared to the US version's first episode, the boys come in with the first win and beat the girls quite comfortably. Sugar is impressed, and says so. Miranda, not surprisingly, is taken to task over her early-doors cut-price strategy; Sugar says that the time to re-evaluate prices is maybe 4 or 5pm, near the end of the task, not 1pm. He says he detects an air of panic and he's not wrong. Also unsurprisingly, when asked who she wants to bring back Saira choose Adeneike, whom she had something of an argument with, and Miranda.

Behind the Boardroom Door
Not quite sure why, but the three of them talk in really low voices so it's hard to make out what they're saying, but I do hear Nick mentioning that Adenike was “a real thorn in Saira's side”...

And then there were three
Miranda's interrogation continues; Sugar tells her he can only see what she did as panic, no matter how she tries to justify it. Selling at a loss just cuts him up, it goes against everything he believes in. Adenike tries to claim she sold well when Sugar takes her to task but Nick shakes his head and says, as we saw, that Saira was doing most of the sales. She however then puts her foot in it when she blames her two teammates for not following her strategy, and Sugar reminds her that she herself told him a short time ago that she allowed some of her team to operate semi-autonomously, as they had greater experience in sales.

It looks like Miranda is for the chop, but as he will often do, Sugar surprises everyone and goes for Adenike, believing her questioning of the PM's strategy was unforgivable, even though Miranda's losing money for the team sticks in his craw. He tells her in particular she is lucky, and Adenike becomes the first one to be fired, which is just as well, as it's hard to remember the spelling of her name...

After the Firing
Generally, Trump tends to say something generic like “that was a hard one” but Sugar often does a little post-mortem of a few words, backing up the reason he fired who he did.

“That's the way I saw it folks. I think she was undermining exactly everything that was agreed.”

Thoughts in the cab
Adenike: “I am obviously quite a strong-headed person. I like to get my opinion across, especially when things don't seem quite right. If you're actually fired for not supporting a losing strategy, that's fine. I'm proud of what I've done, I'm proud of all my suggestions. The bottom line is I have been fired and you just have to accept it and move on.”

You're fired!
Name: Adenike Ogundoyin
Age: 30
Occupation: Restaurant Manager

I can't tell you all that much about her as she was the first to go, and didn't really distinguish herself other than by her disruption of the team and her questioning of Saira's decisions. It was she who wanted to target hospitals and funeral parlours, leading to Margaret's incredulous comment "You wanted to ring funeral directors in the middle of the night, and get them to step out on the pavement and buy sixty quid's worth of flowers from you? That was your strategy, was it?”

She came across as quite sullen, making you wonder why maybe she didn't put herself forward as leader if she thought she was so great, and was another, like Miranda, who refused to accept that she had made mistakes. She originally came from Nigeria, and very sadly, died in 2011 after collapsing at a meeting. There is no information on how she died.

Take me to your leader
First Forte: Saira was a good leader, per se, though she seemed to be one of these hands-on people who have to do everything herself, and she certainly didn't entertain any dissension in her ranks. As one of them put it, she was quite dictatorial, but it more or less worked. She's quite arrogant and condescending, as she says herself in her bio, people can see her as a little bossy. Indeed.

Impact: Tim certainly had a clear startegy and knew what he wanted to do. He used his people well, didn't worry about personal sales--- Paul was clearly the best salesman by a mile and he let him run with it, resulting in a huge win for his team --- and generally nobody seemed to step out of line or disrupt the team really. In other words, there was no Sam.

May the best team win?
Hard to say really, as this was only the first task and for me it looked like it could have gone either way. But compared to the squabbling, one-upmanship on the girls' team, Impact was an ocean of calm, so it's not too surprising that they won. Mind you, the last pitches were disastrous initially for both teams, but Miranda's “panic selling” earlier probably lost them a lot of their potential profit. Nevertheless, I doubt I could have called this.

Weeding out the weaklings
A little early but I saw nothing from Miriam, Rajm Sbastian, Rachel or Linday, an d Adele seemed to do nothing but complain.

The Front Runners
Again, too early to say but Tim and Paul seem to be the two standing out. Saira is good but her abrasive and condescending personality may lead her into trouble with her team.

Sight Adjustment?
Personally, I think selling at below cost price (twice) was a miscalculation Miranda should not have been able to come back from. I think she directly contributed to the team's poor performance, I think she made an unilateral decision that should have been cleared with the PM, and when called on it she did not hold up her hands and admit she had been wrong, she still tried to justify the unjustifiable. I suppose Sugar must have seen something in her but I would have fired her. Adenike was culpable too but not in my opinion as much as Miranda.

Adjustment required: 60%

Oops!
Not to harp on about it, but selling so early at so low a price was a serious flaw in Miranda's logic and, had the takings been a little closer and the girls just narrowly beaten I think she would have had to shoulder the responsibility for that.

The one that got away
For all the reasons already given, I believe Miranda is lucky still to be in the process.

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And so we come to the Irish version. So who is the mogul driving this series? Well, in the US one we have a real-estate developer, in the UK one we have a computer giant, and what can Ireland muster?
Yeah.
A second-hand car salesman. :rolleyes:
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To be fair, he's more than that, but this is where Bill Cullen made his name, buying up the failing Renault dealership in 1986 for the princely sum of one pound. After twenty years though the franchise reverted to Renault themselves, and in 2012 Cullen's business interests in the motor trade were put into receivership. This coincided with the cancellation of the Irish version of “The Apprentice”, though whether that decision had been taken before his financial difficulties surfaced or not I don't know, but like our attempts to ape the UK and US with “Who wants to be a millionaire?” I think Irish TV found that we are just too small a fish to swim with the big boys, and the costs involved in making the Irish Apprentice spiralled too far, causing it to be shut down.

Before it was cancelled though it lasted for four seasons (which is better than our WWTBAM, which only got one) and provided some great entertainment, and allowed for the peculiarly Irish brand of business to seep into the show. Some great (and not so great) characters came through, some careers were built or semi-built, and overall it was not at all a bad series. The final one again mimicked its counterparts across both bodies of water, pulling in stars and Irish notables for a “celebrity” edition.

My surprise at Cullen being our Sugar or Trump stemmed from the fact that I did not know him at all. If someone had asked me to name Irish millionaires, and possible “bosses” for the show, I would have thought maybe Michael O'Leary (Ryanair boss), Dennis O'Brien (newspaper and telecoms magnate) or even Gavin Duffy, who later featured on the Irish version of “Dragons Den”. You could have had Michael Smurfit, printing tycoon, Des Kelley (carpet supremo) or even Fergal Quinn, founder and owner of Quinnsworth and Superquinn, two of our biggest supermarkets. Any of these I would have known, or heard of, but Bill Cullen? Don't ring a bell mate.

In the end, he did a pretty good job, though like any boss on this show he was far from infallible and really showed his lack of experience with the media throughout the show's run. He also chose, in what I believe personally was a bad miscalculation --- his own partner (business and marital) to serve as one of his aides, which surely must have been something of a conflict of interest? How could Jackie Lavin give him honest feedback, even perhaps criticise him or disagree with him, as at least happened in the UK version from time to time, if she was, as we say here, “his mot”? To be fair, she did seem to act very professionally throughout and with a detachment that, in fact, left me unaware that she was in a relationship with Cullen, but I just think putting one of the two top jobs that close to home was a bad move.

Anyway, the show of course follows the very same format as the other two, and though it only lasted for four seasons in total it's definitely worth looking at. There are some small differences in how Bill approached the tasks, which we'll go through as we get to them.

Season one, episode one

Sticking closer to the UK version than the US, this even features the same theme music (Prokofiev's “Montagues and Capulets”), the birds-eyes view of the city, the walk across the bridge, the introduction to “the boss”: almost a carbon copy in fact. Probably something to do with the rules of the franchise, I assume. Oddly enough, even odder given how slavishly the Irish version sticks to its UK counterpart, Bill chooses to meet the candidates for the first time, not in his Boardroom, as do Trump and Sugar, but in front of the house he has procured for them in which they will be living for the next number of weeks. He introduces his advisors: Jackie I've already mentioned, and the other is Brian Purcell, former apprentice himself and PR guru apparently, though I don't know who he is. But then, why would I? I'm not, nor was I ever, in the field of PR, and in fairness, I had no idea who the advisors to Alan Sugar or Donald Trump were before they were announced.

The task, at least the first one, again mirrors that of its two companion shows: selling on the street. Bill began his career selling apples on Moore Street, one of our most famous trading streets, and this is what he will set the teams --- broken into men and women as per usual --- to do. Sell as many apples as you can, given the seed capital of 350 Euro, and return the highest profit. You know by now how it works, and someone in the losing team will of course be fired.

THE TASK
Oddly enough, Bill doesn't mention that they need to come up with a name for their teams, but I guess they suss that out (or have seen the other versions of the show) and the boys decide on Dynamo while the girls come up with Phoenix. Joanna Murphy takes leadership of the girls while Mark O'Rourke is Dynamo's PM. With typical Dublin dependability, the rain is lashing down as they set out to buy their fruit and head to Moore Street. It's always harder to sell in the rain, but the girls seem to be more energised, better organised and seem to be making a better job of it than the guys at this point. However the rain is a problem and nobody is selling well. Ronan on the boys' team is targeting a local business to see if he can get them to take a bulk order, while Joanna decides it's time to up sticks. She heads to the IFSC (Irish Financial Services Centre) where she hopes they will have better luck.

The boys have remained on Moore Street, using it as a base of operations and sending mobile units out to sell to shops, hotels, even hairdressers. The latter does not exactly work out for them, as their rather high prices are not going down well. They're also kind of wandering around, and have managed to pass both the shopping centres in the area. The girls are selling to hotels and restaurants, and getting bulk deals done. They seem overall to have more of a handle on how to do this. Two of the girls, however, have been detailed to sell outside Pearse Street Garda Station, which being a police station I have a feeling is illegal. But we'll see.

Speaking of things not allowed, the boys have included in one of their deals a bottle of champagne taken from the house. Now, that champagne is not theirs. Technically it belongs to Bill. Are they allowed sell it? More to the point, are they allowed to sweeten a deal using it? Again I'd have my doubts but we'll see at the Boardroom. In the end, Dynamo decide to down tools at 1.30pm, hours before they have to, selling off their surplus stock and heading to the Boardroom, while Phoenix set up at the Molly Malone statue on Liffey Street and create a little street theatre, making a buzz and generating more sales while the boys are on the way back already.

And now for a word
Jackie (following Dynamo): “No pricing, no strategy: the ones they sold they were just guessing. He asked the customer how much she'd like to pay for the bananas instead of knowing the price exactly. So, totally disorganised.”

Brian (following Phoenix): “There's a bit of panic setting in here, because Joanna is realising there's no throughput here; there's nobody coming through Moore Street at this stage of the day, and it's actually a bad day for selling anyway. So they have copped on pretty quickly that they should move, and that's I think what they're planning at the moment.”

Jackie: “It's very difficult to stop people on the street today; it's raining today. So they've got a much better deal going on. They've gone into the shop over there and got the manager to buy for the staff. That's a good deal, and now they're getting the idea that maybe this is the way to go today, being such a wet and miserable day. It's better to go into the shops and bring the business in there.”

Jackie: “This is absolutely ridiculous! They're after coming down here, the guts of half a mile, in the hope of getting maybe five Euro, while passing two of the busiest shopping centres in the country, the ILAC and Jervis Street, and it didn't dawn on them to go in there and try to sell. They're on the trail of hairdressing salons because they got a lead. It's lashing rain today: where are people going to be? They're going to be indoors.”

The Boardroom

As in the UK version, anyone wishing to participate in this show has had to show their commitment and dedication by giving up their own job in the hope of landing the one Bill is offering, and one of them is about to regret that decision. Both teams praise their PM, but of course that's easy to do before you know whether you've won or lost. It's when the result is announced that the perhaps false congratulations may turn to recriminations and accusations. As it turns out it's a very close contest, only fifteen Euro in it, but the girls trump the boys, barely. They're the winners by a hair.

Behind the Boardroom Door
Bill: “Well, Jackie. You were with the guys. What went wrong that they didn't get that extra bit?”
Jackie: “The team went wandering. They passed fantastic shopping centres where the people were.”
Bill: “People were in out of the rain obviously.”
Jackie: “Absolutely. It was teeming, absolutely teeming at this stage.”
Bill: “So the best guys were the ones left in Moore Street; were they connected with the other team?”
Jackie: “They were: I think the fatal flaw in that team was they stopped selling at half past one. They had the deal done for a hundred Euro that they were relying on to get them over the line, and didn't really go for it at the last hurdle.”
Bill: “What do you think?”
Brian: “Again I'm worried about the loss of focus, and that's where I think the story is.”

Return to the Boardroom
Mark, as PM, is quizzed by Bill on his handling of the subteam. Did he, he asks, even know where the other half of his team was? Yeah, says Mark, Grafton Street, which is unfortunate as the guys were nowhere near there: I saw a sign advertising the Abbey House, so they were obviously somewhere on Abbey Street, which is a long, long way from Grafton Street, at least ten or fifteen minutes' walk. Bill is not happy either with the idea of using the champagne as an “added incentive”. He doesn't say it's not allowed but he definitely says “Don't like that.” I think he feels they've cheated in a way and he doesn't like the wool being pulled over his eyes. If he's honest about it, I'm sure he doesn't like the idea of them including his champagne in their sales deals.

He's less happy with the guys' decision to stop selling so early. Did Mark not think of going back at 1:30 to pick up more fruit and try selling that, he asks? They still had three hours; two and a half anyway, allowing travel time back to the Boardroom. When Mark admits he “didn't want to take the risk”, that sounds like his death knell. If there's one thing an entrepreneur of any stripe hates, it's someone who isn't prepared to take a risk. After all, that's how they have got to where they are today, by taking chances and guessing right, gambling and wondering “what if” and then acting on that. Nobody --- not Trump, not Sugar, and certainly not Bill --- likes a man or woman who plays it safe.

Unfortunately, they then dig themselves deeper in when Ronan starts talking about the deals they made with the hairdressers and Jackie shakes her head. Never a man not to pick up on such signals, Bill zeroes in and asks for more information. What he hears somewhat takes the gloss off the lauded deal, as Jackie tells him they traipsed up and down Capel Street and Grafton Street and got about 140 Euro in total. When asked who should be fired, Mark is the obvious target and everyone agrees that he was complacent, a little timid and not willing to take the risks that might have won them the task, instead closing early and thinking the job done. Asked who he will bring back with him, Mark chooses David and Ronan.

Behind the Boardroom Door (reprise)
Bill: “Jackie, I get the feeling here that Mark is a good salesman and a very very poor leader. He's also admitted that he was not prepared to take a bit of a risk. That's not the type of fella I'm looking for, is it?”
Jackie: “Well, he lost the plot at that stage because he got overexcited when he heard that the guys had sold over a hundred Euro down on Grafton Street, and they said okay, that's it; we can fold up the tent now because the deal is done.”
Brian: “What did the third member of the party – David --- bring to the team?”
Jackie: “Well, David I thought was quite weak on sales generally, because he didn't have a clue about pricing and when he did make a sale he had to invite the other members of his team in to ask them what the price was. Stood back a fair bit from the whole process.”

And then there were three
Bill accuses Mark of being a good salesman but not a good leader; he says he did not manage the project well. Mark decides to try to divert attention from his poor performance by tackling David on his contribution, and David complains that he is being used as a scapegoat. Mark's reluctance, however, to take responsibility, or blame indeed, for his bad decisions is clearly annoying Bill. When he asks Mark if he should perhaps have appointed a leader of the subteam, and in not doing so, made a mistake, Mark refuses to admit that he is right.

It looks all up for Mark, and I think he's fearing the worst, but in the end it's the “hiding in the long grass” (although Bill calls it “high grass”; same thing) that rankles Bill most, and so he comes down on David. “The man who never makes a mistake never makes anything”, he tells him, and David becomes the first casualty of Bill Cullen's Boardroom.

“You're a real funny guy!”
Some of the bosses think they can crack jokes. Alan Sugar does it a lot, Trump not so much, Bill also gets in on the act. Here I'll be recounting his (ahem) attempts at humour, and how I believe they succeed or fall flat on their face. Just for fun, I'll award each joke a clown rating, from one to five.

Bill says: “The idea of the task is to make profit! And that doesn't mean Moses or John the Baptist!”
(Decent joke, original in its way and panders slightly to Catholic Ireland. Got to be a three-clown rating for that one.)
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Schoolboy errors
Given that this is their first attempt at the show, I feel that some slip-ups are expected, even forgivable, but some do not get addressed in later episodes, even in some cases in later seasons. One of the ones that really bugs me is how Bill departs when he has delivered the task. HE walks off. If you look at the US and UK versions, they both usher their teams out the door, or wait while they walk off, giving them the very clear impression of holding the power. When Bill walks off, the illusion is shattered, and I think it's the wrong way to go about it. Also, on occasions he almost seems unsure as to where he is to go, and uncertainty is not a trait we're supposed to see in the boss on this show. As I say, they never addressed this, and I don't know how someone did not realise that it looked frankly terrible. All they needed was a change of camera angle, but they never got to it.

Thoughts in the cab
David: “I think today Bill did make the right decision. I didn't put myself out there enough. I still got down to the final fourteen. I don't ever do regrets: it's important to keep a positive attitude and keep looking forward.”
(A weak sign-off from a weak candidate. Interestingly, of all the series this is the first time someone has actually agreed that they should have been fired. I would not question that decision; David came across as a very ineffectual candidate and despite his contention that he could be a “great leader” he showed no leadership qualities, and seemed ill-at-ease with the whole process. He was not at all comfortable selling and looked totally out of place).