Young Apprentice: week five

Karren Brady, Lord Sugar, Nick Hewer

8am Monday morning. Wembley stadium. The contestants wait with great patience and excitement as Nick and Karen emerge looking equally as exhilarated to be here. Then out of nowhere, an enormous projection of Lord Sugar’s head beams before the candidates, his voice booming across the stadium. In fact, his voice was so loud I reckon he gave Gbemi a run for her money. Gazing in awe, they avidly listen in anticipation of this week's task.

After this grand opening, I felt a little let down when I discovered that the candidates would be creating, marketing and pitching their own deodorant. I expected a glamorous, magnificent and glorious spectacle, I was obviously wrong!

Unfortunately for viewers, the time had come for Harry M to be project manager. Since the beginning, he has caused waves of disruption within teams and has been in the losing team every week, without exception. From the offset, Harry adopted a dictatorial leadership style and his exclamation of “I’m project manager” was heard at least 50 times. Aptly, their product was named “Vanity”, although surprisingly this was not Harry M’s idea. And it was a step too far when Harry suggested a cat fight for the advert - Nick was left speechless.

The other team clearly had perspiration issues because they believed the market really needed a longer lasting deodorant.  This unanimous belief within the group was soon shot down by the focus group that they used, whose demands taught the team that daytime and night-time deodorants are quite different things. This upset eloquent Zara who thought she understood the market until now. In her confused state, Zara resorted to using a single hip-hop dancer in her video in order to appeal to the youth of today.  Not all teenagers are break dancers you know!

When the products arrived, both teams were awash with disappointed expressions. Frankly, Zara’s deodorant looked more like an insect repellent than the classy deodorant they intended on producing. Labelled “RAW”, the design failed to express the team’s edgy concept.

Back to hectic Harry M, who continued to fail when filming his advert. Nick held up the blank storyboard with a look of disgust and horror when Harry thought it would be wise to direct the advert without any planning. Despite this organisational failure, Nick managed to muster up a smile at the final cut, which was admittedly quite funny.

Now I don't know about you, but I was always convinced that antiperspirant was invented to prevent sweating. Judging by Zara’s advert, which showed a very sweaty man dancing, her team were clearly under a diiferent impression...  However, during the pitch all contestants proved themselves to possess some business acumen, they answered questions fluently and the pitches were delivered sweat free.

Inevitably Harry’s team lost and Gbemi and James were brought back with dictator Harry. Having remained quiet for a few weeks, I forgot about Gbemi’s motor mouth which I struggle to keep up with. The more she spoke, the more trouble she created for herself as she diverted the attention away from hopeless Harry. Once again, Harry walked away unscathed from the boardroom, although Gbemi didn't hug him goodbye - a final reminder of how unpopular he is.

The fight for the £25,000 continues next week when contestants take to the streets of London to find 10 mystery items.