It’s only week 2 of ‘The Apprentice’ and already there are tears, with one team making a most elementary error that left even Karren Brady (almost) speechless.
Lady Brady can usually be relied on to provide a bon mot in ‘The Apprentice’ boardroom, but even she is left searching for words in tonight’s episode, when one of the teams boo-boos in a pretty big way.
The boys’ and girls’ teams - Titan and Nebular to give them their proper epithets - are tasked with designing an advertising campaign for some jeans.
However, Team Nebular run into a spot of bother when they turn up for the photo shoot, and it emerges they’ve left one item behind… that’ll be the jeans.
Baroness Brady’s face says it all. She’s silent for quite a while, before asking, perfectly reasonably, “So you’re doing photographs for your jean campaign without your jeans?”
At first, project manager Jessica (the female Jim Carrey?) tries to brazen it out, calmly telling the camera woman that they’ve not got the jeans, saying only: “Basically the last location, we’ve put the jeans down and then we’ve not picked them back up again.”
But then the tears start to flow.
However, it’s not long before Jessica is in a hot, ineffectual state, before Karren has to advise: “Jessica, go outside, go and take a breath, calm yourself down. We’ll all be here when you’re ready.”
While she’s gone, her team-mates prove their ambition over their altruism, plotting: “Right guys, let’s try and pull this together. Let’s try and talk while she’s not here. We can’t rely on her.” Nice!
The boys aren’t having it all their own way, however. losing the fight against the clock when they have to sort out the interactive feature of their bus billboard.
For this week’s task, teams need to design packaging, film a TV advert and create an attention-grabbing bus shelter advert, all before pitching the whole campaign to a panel of leading industry experts.
For one team, this means ‘Day After Yesterday’ jeans, while the other concentrates on ‘Unclaimed’.
On pitch day both teams face some of the country’s biggest industry experts, but it’s a confusing pitch from one team and for the other nerves derail the pitch entirely.
Meanwhile, Karthik continues to impress with his unique style, this week explaining his cosmetic choices - “If I wanted to be like everybody else, I would have plucked my mono-brow.”
‘The Apprentice’ airs tonight on BBC One at 9pm.