The Interview round is different. Here the surviving candidates, usually the least worst of the bunch, are confronted by a group of people whose job is to be even more obnoxious than they are. The candidates are interrupted, ignored and insulted and expected to just sit their and take it. It doesn't help that its inevitably a stitch up. The worst example came in series 3 when, eventual winner Lee, was ordered to do his pterodactyl impression and then told off for doing something so inappropriate in an interview. Then it was revealed that he had lied about his qualifications on his CV, something the production team most have know about but kept to themselves so it could be used against him.
The interview round is fundamentally unfair and that makes the candidates sympathetic, and that's the last thing we want.
Firing squad
Anyway, the interview round is what we get so I'm going to have to make the most of it. The candidates are assembled and asked to summarise their proposed business in one line. This is a new innovation, probably introduced because last year no-one, even Lord Siralan, fully understood what they were babbling on about. Nick wants to add a button to food websites that allows the user to buy all the ingredients for a recipe with one click. Tom plans to set up a £25 million wine hedge fund, essentially what he already does on a much larger scale. Jade wants to run Europe's largest telemarketing call centre (!!!). Ricky waffles for a while about ethical and sustainable businesses until Lord Siralan gets him to boil it down to a recruitment company. Again, the job he already does. These plans actually sound quite reasonable compared with last years, which included a posture consultant company, a concierge service for the poor and a charity. Even Jade's, which is a borderline crime against humanity, sounds like it could actually make money.
No that's proper Evil. "Pure Evil" take note.
Next up its time to meet the interviewers, each of whom are introduced with a kind of nickname, like their professional wrestlers. Ricky should be right at home. Two of them "Award Winning" Mike Suter and "Former Young Entrepreneur of the Year" Matthew Reily are essentially the same, faintly evil looking men in dark grey suits. Then we have "No Nonsense" Margaret Mountford, veteran of many an Apprentice series, who perfected the art of looking like a disapproving head mistress when Karen Brady was still in nappies or running a football club, whichever came first. Finally we have the hulking, Baron Greenback like form of Claude Litner "King of the Killer question", former global troubleshooter for Lord Siralan and nemesis of Danger Mouse.
The guys don't seem to rate Jade's chances very highly. When Tom asks, Ricky gives her 2 out of 10 and Nick 3. While this may be slightly patronising, it has some truth in it as no-one seems much impressed with her business plan. Claude seems particularly scornful, calling it a "grubby little business." His principle concern seems to be that he doesn't want to be called at home of an evening. To be honest, this sounds like a good reason to cough up. If Jade does get the thing going, she probably won't use it to harass the people who paid for it. She has more problems though. Her business plan doesn't include any costs, because she reckons Lord Siralan's 250 grand will cover it. Nor does it help that one of the anonymous grey-suited men has bought one of the domain names she wanted to use for her website, essentially just to be spiteful.
Nick is doing somewhat better. No-one really understands the technology behind his proposal, but he has a working prototype and a good business plan. Matthew Reily, the "former young entrepreneur of the year", a title less a source of inspiration than a horrible warning about the effects of the ravages of time, is reduced to insisting that no-one would use it. Nick suggests that it would be useful for families planning out weekly meals, but Matthew apparently knows no-one who does this. Nick can't do much more than assure him that real people, who don't just swallow whole sandwiches or eat only at business meetings, do in fact exist while trying not to giggle. Nick's biggest problem is his somewhat hubristic insistence that this could be as big as Facebook or Twitter and a lack of focus, he already has three businesses on the go.
Nick tries to keep a straight face
Tom has a similarly impressive business plan and clearly knows the industry. In fact, he is so solid that the best "Award Winning" Mike Suter can do is ask if his dad wrote his proposal for him. Why stop at his dad? Why not claim he copied it off the Internet or was given it by magic business fairies. Claude Litner does little better, choosing simply to quibble endlessly over his description of himself as "entirely well-rounded" because he's only 23. He then insists that the business won't work because he can't raise the money. Tom thinks he can, but Claude still says he can't, leading to a pointless back and forth that I expected to be interrupted at any moment by Lord Siralan jumping out in a pantomime Dame's costume to yell "he's behind you."
Ricky also has a good business plan and knows his industry, but the interviewers have found another line of attack in the form of his CV. It's not really fair to attack Ricky over a document he wrote to attract the attention of BBC recruiters months ago, but it's funny so I'll let them off here. Claude thinks it's one of the most crass and immature documents he's ever read and parts of it apparently made Matthew Reilly want to be sick. But its Margaret Mountford who teases out the best material. Ricky likens himself to the God Thor and sees Lord Siralan as Odin. Disturbingly, when trying to justify this Ricky seems to claim he actually is a son of God descended from the Heavens. I'm hoping that's just nervousness. Given that Ricky has previously claimed to be a shark, I'm not sure being a God with lightning based powers is necessarily an advantage.
Matthew Reilly tries not to be sick
Even more disturbing than this is the revelation that Ricky has not been saddled with an unfortunate name. He is, in fact, Richard Martin. He chose to use Ricky in order to attract attention. Ricky's belief is that its worth doing anything to get noticed and be memorable, a position I seriously hope he will reconsider after his experiences on this show.
Ricky looks to his divine father for guidance
Back in the boardroom.. Lord Siralan dispenses with Jade first. He's hardly a popular man and if he went with Jade's proposal there's a dangerous chance he might be tarred and feathered. Nick is next to go, as much, it seems, because Lord Siralan doesn't fully understand his proposal. The glory days of Amstrad are clearly far behind him. This leaves Ricky and Tom, both of whom are essentially proposing versions of their existing business. Ricky's plan is dull but will probably make steady money, Tom's is risky but could make a fortune. Nick Hewer likens working with Tom as like a last throw of the dice. This seems a touch fatalistic given that Lord Siralan is going to be putting another twelve victims through this nonsense next year.
In the end he goes with Ricky. Apparently,given his position in society he can't be seen to be associated with failure. Hang on, wasn't he an advisor to Gordon Brown's government? (Thought I'd go with the Amstrad Emailer joke didn't you, I'm too unpredictable for you).
Anyway, congratulations Ricky. Now you can leave your job in recruitment to work as your own boss, except for the terrifying hedgehog man standing over your shoulder controlling the purse strings. And all it cost you was twelve weeks of ritual humiliation.
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