‘Pour some Sugar on me,’ sang the house-band, Four Poofs and a Piano, as Sugar appeared in the studio to rapturous applause.
Turning to the 40th wedding anniversary that Sugar and his wife had just celebrated, Ross quipped, ‘She could do better than you to be honest!’
Sugar took the banter on the chin, laughed and said, ‘That’s what people have always said.’ Asked how he thought his wife had put up with him for 40 years, he said, ‘I don’t know. I think, if you knew her nature, and the type of person that she is, you’d understand how it’s lasted for 40 years. She’s completely the opposite to me. So, a very nice, kind caring person. But seriously, she’s kept me on the straight and level.’
Ross commented how Sugar looked particularly healthy and groomed. ‘I don’t want to bore you with my medical history, but I had that groin problem,’ said Sugar. ‘They fixed it in the end. I told you the last time I was here.’ He then explained how the doctor who fixed his groin had expressed disbelief that Sugar had never had a colonoscopy. What was that? wondered Ross and much of the audience. ‘It’s investigatory,’ he said, before cutting straight to the chase by adding, ‘It’s when they stick a camera up your backside, you know?’ He told how when the doctor had stuck the camera up, he had kept saying ‘Ooh!’ and ‘aah!’ ‘I thought he’d found Lord Lucan up there!’
Turning to The Apprentice, when Ross asked how much control the producers had over him, Sugar was unequivocal. He denied that he was told whom to sack by the producers, and said that, other than being advised what time to turn up for filming, nobody ever told him what to do. ‘I’m not an actor. Everything I say, good, bad or indifferent, comes out of my own mouth. There’s no scripting.’ He also praised his sidekicks Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer as the ‘unsung heroes’ of the show. Then Ross showed the audience an amusing clip from a recent episode and there was laughter aplenty.
Turning from interviewee to interviewer, Sugar then decided to take control of proceedings. ‘Are you going to do the Comic Relief Apprentice?’ he asked Ross. While the host nervously pleaded with Sugar not to ‘start bossing me around’, the audience widely applauded Sugar’s suggestion. Another of the evening’s guests, Johnny Vegas, had promised to do it, added Sugar, really piling on the pressure. After Ross squirmed for a while, Sugar announced, ‘So that’s it, you’re going to join us. You’re in.’ Ross agreed and they shook on it, before the host joked that Sugar would have to let him win.
Ross revealed that, in the current series of The Apprentice, he was very fond of Raef. ‘My first reaction on seeing him was, “This man’s an absolute cock,”’ said Ross. ‘Then by week two, I thought I rather like him!’ He went on to praise Raef’s sartorial elegance.
Sugar had giggled at some of Ross’s comments, but he was quick to defend his man loyally. ‘He’s actually a very, very nice fellow. He is really a nice fellow,’ said the gracious guest. He then admitted that he enjoyed firing ‘evil’ Jenny, because of how she turned on Sara in the boardroom and admitted he was a bit scared when he fired the other Jenny. There were then some bizarre interruptions from Vegas, who was in rather irritating mood. For reasons beyond Sugar’s control, the interview never really picked up after that. However, at least he had enrolled Ross on to the Comic Relief Apprentice.
As it turned out, Ross’s promise to appear on the Comic Relief Apprentice created a small headache for the show’s producers. Weeks before filming on the show began, Ross landed himself in extremely hot water after a controversial appearance on Russell Brand’s Radio 2 programme. The pair made some prank calls to 78-year-old former Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs, and left obscene message on the actor’s phone. Soon, in part thanks to the Daily Mail, a media storm erupted over the matter, resulting in BBC director general Mark Thompson suspending Ross. ‘He absolutely overstepped the mark,’ said Thompson. ‘A 12-week suspension is an exceptional step, but I believe it is a proportionate response to Jonathan’s role in this unhappy affair.
‘I believe that he fully understands the seriousness of what has happened. We agree that nothing like this must ever happen again and that tight discipline will be required for the future.’
However, given the charitable nature of the show, the suspension was lifted in order to allow Ross to film the Comic Relief Apprentice.
A show insider said, ‘Jonathan was in a difficult position as his suspension came just days before filming began on the show. Pulling out at such short notice would have left producers with a headache.’
The charity spin-offs of The Apprentice have become a firm favourite for television viewers. Comic Relief Does The Apprentice was aired in March 2007, featuring a girls’ team including Cheryl Cole, Jo Brand and Karren Brady and a boys’ team boasting, among others, Alastair Campbell, Rupert Everett and Piers Morgan. The show had a one-off task: to run a funfair and raise funds for Comic Relief. The girls’ team won the competition, but the true winner was Comic Relief, which was £1 million to the good as a result of the show. The following year, the Sport Relief charity benefited when a Sport Relief Does The Apprentice special was aired on BBC1. Once more the girls’ team – featuring the likes of Claire Balding and Louise Redknapp – beat the boys’ team, which included Nick Hancock and Lembit Opik.
The charity funds raised were a great consequence of The Apprentice’s success. Soon, it was time for other countries’ viewers to watch the original British show and give their verdict on it. Many of the more successful reality-television shows of recent years have been imported into Britain from overseas. Big Brother was originally a Dutch show, and, of course, The Apprentice itself was an American invention. However, there are also precedents of British reality shows doing well overseas, the most striking example of which is the success of American Idol on Fox in the USA. The show has attracted more than 40 million viewers for its grand finale, has launched the careers of a string of stars including Kelly Clarkson, and has been described by Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, as ‘the most impactful show in the history of television’. However, this show that has become such a monstrous success actually came from a British original Pop Idol, which was launched in October 2001 on ITV. A reality music competition, it was an astonishing hit. Pop hopefuls sang in front of a panel comprising Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman, Nicki Chapman and Neil Fox. After the judging panel whittled down the contestants to a final 50, the public then voted for their ‘pop idol’ until the field was reduced to a final two.
And what a final two there were! Gareth Gates was a fresh-faced boy from Yorkshire with the voice of an angel when he sang, but a severe stammer when he spoke. Will Young was the posh, slightly awkward boy from Berkshire who had gathered extra support when he confronted judge Cowell about his rude and withering assessments of the contestants. The country was gripped by Pop Idol fever in the week of the final, and Gates and Young took to election-style campaign buses, travelling round the country whipping up support. On the night, there was an avalanche of voting and Will Young won the title. Although the second series (won by Scottish singer Michelle McManus) was less of a success, and even though Pop Idol has since been usurped and replaced by Cowell’s new show The X Factor, the show’s legacy and stature is for ever assured by the incredible global franchise that it has attained, with local versions of the show appearing on television worldwide from America to Vietnam.
It is in America, however, that the ‘Idol franchise’ has been most successful. As Ed Caesar wrote in the Independent on the success of American Idol: ‘Idol has eaten America. To understand quite how gluttonously, you have to cross the Atlantic. You have to look at the newsstands, where, last week, three national magazines featured one or all of American Idol’s star presenters – Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Ryan Seacrest – on their front covers. You have to visit the supermarkets, where American Idol ice cream is flying off the shelves. You have to look in the record shops, where sales of American Idol artists have now passed 50 million units. And, of course, you
have to turn on the television, where not only has American Idol’s prime-time slot pulled as many as 41 million viewers, but where the show’s enormous reach has launched the most unlikely of stars.’
Interestingly, the success of American Idol has been very much credited to the team of Brits behind it: Simon Fuller, Simon Cowell, Nigel Lythgoe and Warwick. Cowell says the show has a very British sense of humour to it, and even credits the American presenter Ryan Seacrest with a ‘very British’ style.
With The Apprentice, of course, the roles were reversed: it began in America and was then imported into Britain. However, in time, the show would make the return trip as the British version was sold to America and elsewhere on the planet. Having been such a hit in the UK, it was only going to be a matter of time before The Apprentice was shown overseas. Given how peculiarly British Alan Sugar’s gruff manner and delivery is, it was interesting to see how overseas critics would receive it, as it rolled out across the globe’s television networks. It has been shown in a number of countries, including America, Australia and South Africa. In Australia, a famously plain-speaking nation, as one might imagine, Sugar’s outspoken, macho delivery went down well, and there was praise aplenty for him when The Apprentice: UK was aired on Channel 7 in 2008. On this leading Aussie channel, the programme sat in the listings alongside shows including Home & Away, Deal or No Deal, Make Me a Supermodel and 10 Years Younger in 10 Days. The channel did some imaginative marketing to promote the show in Australia, by sending attractive ladies out in Channel 7 T-shirts, handing out packets of lollipops with a sticker on the packet reading: ‘Alan Sugar … Sweet by name, not by nature.’ It was a marketing ploy that would surely have won Sugar’s approval had an Apprentice team thought it up in one of the show’s tasks.
It captured the imagination of commuters in Australia and helped create a fanbase in homes – and newspapers – across the country. The South Australian newspaper the Sunday Mail led the cheers of appreciation. ‘Move over Donald Trump – Alan Sugar is in the boardroom, and he’s far more entertaining,’ cheered their reviewer. ‘The billionaire founder of 1980s electronics giant Amstrad does the firing in this UK version of the American reality show, and he’s got even more chutzpah than his New York comrade (not to mention better hair). In episode one, the female contestants predictably use their sex appeal to get ahead in the challenge. The result? Sugar goes totally mental. Fantastic.’ Fantastic indeed. And the hair obsession did not end with the Sunday Mail, with another Aussie newspaper, The Age Melbourne, summing up their preview of the show with, ‘Sir Alan Sugar doesn’t have as interesting hair as Donald Trump.’
Hair comparisons aside, Australia was falling in love with this new Cockney face on their television screens. From Perth to Sydney, Melbourne to Canberra, viewers were tuning in to see Alan Sugar’s latest boardroom dressing-downs of the contestants. And they liked what they were seeing. The ringleader for the growing Sugar fan club Down Under came in the shape of the Townsville Bulletin Australia reviewer who summed up just why the Amstrad ace was proving such a hit: ‘Overblown reality TV vehicle was self-aggrandising nonsense, but this UK version instantly caught my attention thanks to the magnetic presence of its star, Sir Alan Sugar,’ he began. ‘I gave Sir Alan a chance to impress … let’s just say that he had me at, “I don’t know if you’re just a bloody nutter”. There’s an undeniably roguish charm about this latest reality TV star which makes The Apprentice: UK fascinating viewing. Sir Alan, however, will be a breath of fresh air to many viewers.’
The Weekend Australian magazine was less impressed. Placing the show in the context of the Channel 7 fortunes, it nonetheless threw a few punches. ‘You can see the logic. Seven let go of the low-rating Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares only to see it become a phenomenal success years later on Nine. Maybe this is another show whose time has come. But Alan Sugar, the man who founded Amstrad computing in the 1980s, does not have the sweary charm of Gordon Ramsay or, for that matter, the mercurial personality and comprehension-defying hair of Donald Trump, host of the original US Apprentice.’ The Sydney Morning Herald was more positive: ‘If you’ve seen the ads, you can easily imagine Sir Alan Sugar, the British business clone of Donald Trump, as being among the world’s most unpleasant bosses. In fact, he’s harsh – no doubt about that – but reasonable, too.’
The Age gave a more upbeat synopsis: ‘14 ambitious, congenially up-themselves swells in suits and skirts front up to the office of Sir Alan Sugar, a British self-made billionaire (in Australian dollars anyway). Sir Alan, like his US counterpart Donald Trump, has made his huge fortune through a combination of business acumen, hard work and eating people for breakfast, and here he has a smorgasbord of ego-driven, self-deluding tykes upon which to feed.’
The Age review continued by comparing the English version with the American original, which Aussie viewers had already enjoyed: ‘There is, however, one key point of distinction. We somehow expect to see Americans tearing each other’s throat out in the quest for a high-paying job, but there is still some novelty in seeing Brits doing the same thing. This becomes gloriously pronounced in the final boardroom scene where the three candidates for dismissal get sucked into a panic spiral of accusation as Sir Alan prepares to fire one of them. But the big question, of course, is: how does Sir Alan stack up compared to adorable comb-over king Donald Trump? The answer is: pretty darn well. While Sir Alan might not have the swagger of Trump’s city-swallowing hubris he does have the gruff, rough-around-the-edges charm of a council-flat kid who made his pile using brains, balls and street smarts.’
So, overall, a big thumbs-up from Down Under.
As for the Americans, they were intrigued to see how their show would look and sound in the British version. As the Newsday, New York, newspaper put the big question: ‘Does “You’re Fired!” sound better with a British accent? We’ll find out when CNBC imports The Apprentice UK. It’s overseen by tough-talking business titan Alan Sugar, a working-class school dropout who made his multimillions in computers, jets and the Tottenham Hotspur football club.’ Although the school dropout description was a little wide of the mark, it was clear what they were trying to do.
The Baltimore Sun had previewed it favourably: ‘Tonight’s guilty pleasure, much as I hate to admit it, I must be an Anglophile. Everything I hate about NBC’s The Apprentice, I like in The Apprentice: UK, the Brit version. Self-made rich guy Sir Alan Sugar makes Donald Trump seem like a wimp.’
The CNBC channel was a fitting home for the show. It is widely regarded as the world leader in business news, broadcasting to more than 340 million homes worldwide, including more than 95 million households in the United States and Canada. It proudly launched The Apprentice: UK on 25 August 2008 at 9pm and 1am Eastern Time.
The reviews came thick and fast. Matt Millar in the Daily Deal wrote, ‘On the show, which has achieved the same cult status as its US cousin, one contestant actually had the temerity to quit on camera, citing personal problems and what she insisted were other contestants’ constant attempts to undermine her. Sugar gave her the evil eye and told her to shut up. Life was tough, he snarled, then fired her anyway.’
‘The great thing about The Apprentice’, wrote a columnist for the Sun, ‘is that much as we hate most of these contestants, Alan Sugar seems to hate them far more.’ Sugar, as the Sun columnist points out, is permanently ticked off, making Trump seem a lightweight.
The Lansing State Journal, Michigan, noted that the British version was more true to life than the American original: ‘In this version, crusty Sir Alan Sugar does the hiring. Unlike the US version, this doesn’t seem obsessed with telegenic contestants. Also, it rains a lot.’
Another feature of Sugar’s post-Amstrad career has been his newspaper columns, including his must-read articles in the Sun. In these, he has become an articulate commentator on a number of issues, including the future of Premiership football. When Manchester City were brought by Arab billionaire Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim in 2008, comparisons were made between
Al Fahim and Sugar, although these were not comparisons that Sugar necessarily went along with. ‘I hear Manchester City’s new owner Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim is being compared to me,’ he wrote in the Sun. ‘Well, we’ve both got beards, his daddy has loads of oil reserves. My daddy’s reserves were in an oil can he used on his sewing machine in our council flat. And, wait for it … we’re both doctors. Yes that’s shocked you – I am a DSc from both London City and Brunel Universities. To be honest, I draw the line at hysterectomies.’
He went on to describe how he spent the transfer deadline day glued to his television screen, and was as stunned as everyone when he learned the Robinho had signed for Manchester City. However, he predicted trouble ahead at the club, between their new owner and manager Mark Hughes. ‘I have visions of Dr Al calling a meeting in the dressing room: “Hello and greetings … Mr Mark, I don’t like this 4–4–2. We play next week Camel formation, OK, do it.”’
Returning to his infamous ‘Carlos Kickaballs’ statement of the 1990s, Sir Alan claimed to be vindicated. ‘We wonder why we can’t put out a good England team. The reason is the Premier League attracts all the imports – as I put it 15 years ago, the Carlos Kickaballs who have no interest in the UK club they play for. They are playing for themselves. This is stopping young English players getting a chance to enhance their skills and learn their trade in the teams that they really love and admire. Teams they really did follow as a boy.’
So Sugar remains as sharp as ever when dissecting the football world, but the topic where it seems he is at his most eloquent and powerful is that of politics. In 2008, he was quick to pounce on an own goal by Conservative leader David Cameron, who had moaned about The Apprentice and its star, saying, ‘I can’t bear Alan Sugar. I like TV to escape.’
On hearing of this Cameron putdown, Sugar had an immediate and witty riposte: ‘I’m glad he can’t bear me. Perhaps he will stop asking people to sound me out if I want to meet him and defect to his party.’ He added, ‘I am still waiting for him to answer my question: if he was in power would things be any different? He seems to know when to stay silent.’
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