Still no favourites for The Apprentice (From Bucks Free Press)

Still no favourites for The Apprentice

2:07pm Tuesday 2nd June 2009

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WITH just two more episodes to go, there is still no runaway candidate leading the pack of would-be white-collar wolves in the latest series of The Apprentice.

Last week saw Howard get the chop – a surprise given he’d been standing out a bit over the last few weeks. I thought for sure it would be “slow burner” Lorraine’s turn, as she picked those ridiculous craft work cats to flog to shopping channel punters. Or not flog, as it turned out.

The TV shopping task is always plenty of fun – seeing the stony candidates flounder under the pressure of studio lights and a live performance makes for very satisfying viewing.

As has often been the case over the course of this series, James was the comedy star of the show.

To be fair, his unfortunate foot in mouth syndrome distracts from someone who actually seems to have a decent grasp of the businessworld.

But, still, he’s guaranteed to deliver a few laughs whenever he opens his mouth and fails to realise what comes out.

He and teammate Yasmina certainly had a decent rapport in front of the camera, but James’ delivery was a tad stilted to say the least, as if his brain wasn’t quite liaising with his mouth. The comedy patter was there, but he was firing off punchlines with all the comic timing of a stopped watch.

It’s not clear Sir Alan quite sees James’ potential yet – so far he’s been less than encouraging to the poor fellow, calling him a plonker last week and more memorably, a village idiot a month or so ago.

Still, he keeps sneaking into the next round, just about, and now is the only remaining male in the contest (“I feel like Hugh Hefner”, he quipped after finding out).

The most shocking moment last week came when the fiercely formidable Debra took to the shopping channel though. Considering you would expect her to have all the TV-friendly warmth or a crazed, bloodlusting Rottweiler, she was a complete revelation. Warm and personable, she actually came across as a human being instead of a fearsome robotic refugee from the new Terminator film.

She even managed to make a success of selling some odd neck scarf type garment that, frankly, looked unsellable.

And when Sir Alan announced to the remaining competitors he wanted someone who stood out this year – to poor Howard’s cost – you could be forgiven for thinking he meant her.

So from being the one who was clinging on by her fingernails throughout the series so far, thanks to that fierce manner, she may well be one of the favourites for the final episode.

But tomorrow night’s episode is the interview one, where all bets are off. That’s when all the stalwart candidates so far usually get revealed as complete blaggers and we find out the ones we had pegged as no-hopers have actually run a multi-national from their bedroom or something.

Of course, it will be worth watching just to find out what is in James’ CV. In his application to the competition he said he could “taste success in his own spit” – there have surely got to be more comedy gems where that one came from.

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