Sorry, Sir Alan – you’re yesterday’s man

13 April 2012

EVEN the publicity picture of the contestants with their "me, me, me" poses, pinstripe suits and stilettos, against a backdrop of Canary Wharf, says it all. The Apprentice, the fifth series of which was launched yesterday but screens next week, is suddenly looking very dated indeed.

That's not allowing for the star himself: Sir Alan Sugar, the former Amstrad electronics boss who was big in, oops, property when the market crashed. Or the prize: £100,000 a year for a traineeship, which in this climate is havin' a larf.

Despite the best efforts of the show's producers to take account of the crunch - mention of Sugar's fortune has been removed and the emphasis is all British with no trips abroad - The Apprentice is past it.

An idea conceived at the height of the boom, purporting to show the toughness of life in go-getting capitalism, is in danger of becoming a symbol of a bygone age. The references to the City where thousands have been sacked and the programme's other accessories now seem redundant.

The contestants' boasting, nauseating at the best of times, now seems risible. "I only let the people I can trust see the softer side of me," says Debra Barr, a senior sales consultant, 24, from Surrey. No, Debra, no - if you want to remain senior you wouldn't say that. And, by the way, just how "senior" are you? We've grown very cynical these past few months about job titles.

In a City where the brightest and the best are turning their backs in droves and heading for the public services and careers such as teaching, Sugar's wannabes are a breed apart. "Business is the new rock '*' roll and I'm Elvis Presley," says Phillip Taylor, an estate agent, 29. Hmm. Phil, hello? Nobody is singing any more.

At the contest's heart is old grizzle chops. With his delivery from the hip and his permanent snarl, Sugar always was a bit of a dinosaur. Unless he reinvents himself, extinction surely beckons.

In real life he's busy promoting the resurrection of the apprenticeship training scheme, which developed skills in manufacturing trades and crafts and was allowed to fall by the wayside as the country rushed headlong into banking and financial services.

None of those new apprentices are on £100,000 a year. The Apprentice - time it was fired?

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