The Apprentice: Who got fired last night? Week two task sees one candidate leave process after storybook disaster
The Apprentice is now is full swing and week two saw this year’s candidates put through their paces in a new challenge.
Following the disaster that was last week’s opening task, Lord Alan Sugar would be hoping that this year’s cohort had bucked up their ideas and knuckled down for the second task of the series.
This week, Lord Sugar instructed the candidates to construct a storybook tale for children aged four to six years old. The teams were tasked with creating an entire story, including a book, audio narration, and a character to lead the story, before pitching their children’s book to prominent retailers.
Following last week’s double firing, the girls were asked to choose one boy to join their team to even up the playing field. Levi was chosen to join the girls’ team.
As the candidates got to work on their ideas for the storybook, they also had to choose project manager for the task. Mum-of-five Andrea was chosen as the girls’ PM, meanwhile barber Marcus was chosen for the boys, despite attempts from Kieran to redeem himself for last week’s pitiful PM display.
After discussion, the girls’ landed on the story of Zebory the zebra, although the group butted heads over the storyline. The group was keen for a storyline involving Zebory earning his stripes as he made his way through the jungle, but PM Andrea, who is also a school governess, was enthusiastic to involve a storyline about starting school and alleviating the anxiety of moving to a new school.
Meanwhile, the boys took a more immature route with Astro the astronaut whose entire mission is to do a poo. While the boys quickly landed on a story idea for their children’s book, the design team. led by sub-PM Kieran ran out of time to complete the book, leaving two pages with no illustrations.
The girls on the design team were left confused after their story team failed to mention anything about Zebory gaining his stripes in the story.
Eventually after pitching to retailers, the girls came out on top with a total of 2,855 orders from all eight retailers, while the boys only sold 419 units to five retailers.
PM Marcus was instructed to bring back two boys to the boardroom, where at least one of them would be fired. After choosing Kieran and Dan to return, marcus reentered the boardroom and told Lord Sugar he had made a mistake and wanted to swap Dan with Priyesh. Lord Sugar was left baffled and told him that the four of them would be facing the boardroom instead.
After facing a grilling from Lord Sugar, Tim and Karen, it was project manager Marcus who was given the chop from the process.
Speaking about his departure, Marcus said: “I was absolutely gutted. I had so much more to give to the show. I feel as though I didn’t really get to showcase my business acumen and my business skills, considering I’ve been running a business for five years and a successful one at that.
“And I was mostly upset at the fact that I couldn’t see the other candidates. They were amazing people, absolutely class individuals. I think the production team did an amazing job gathering the candidates together. We all fit together really well. So yeah, I think missing them was probably the biggest part.”
He added that he “definitely did not deserve to go” despite being fired by Lord Sugar for the failure of the storybook task.
The search for Lord Sugar’s next business partner continues next week, when candidates will be tasked with a food challenge. They will be instructed to create a new chicken and egg product to serve up to the public.
The Apprentice continue next Thursday at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. You can catch up on the series so far on BBC iPlayer.