The Apprentice: Mermaids and A-Listers

The Apprentice

Week eight commenced and a new location was granted. Candidates gathered at the National Portrait Gallery where they were presented with an event managing task. Teams were to host their own event at their allocated venues and the teams with the most profit would be the winners.

Lord Sugar then gave team Titans London Aquarium as their venue and Madame Tussauds was allocated to team Nebula.

Off the teams went, to plan and create their own unique events that would hopefully rake in the money. Dillon became project manager for team Titans and Paul was in hope to manage a second win for team Nebula.

Entertainment was discussed and I believe Nebula’s choice of casino was a great option, however not so keen on Titans’ mermaid entertainment but it went with the theme of the venue so it could’ve been a good shout.

Once teams were off to sell the tickets, it was clear that Paul had no clear pricing strategy. It was disastrous – numbers became lower and lower but if the team had thought to have done research into pricing and not just estimating their own, sales would be racking up quicker.

Now, from initially being fairly dubious on the mermaid entertainment, I seemed not to be the only one. Courtney and Grainne were selling their tickets, highly promoting the fact that guests would see a “breath-taking” performance of a mermaid in water. One problem – there was to be no mermaid in water, but two dressed up women singing a bit of Disney.

From the get-go, Frances had been singing Paul’s praises on countless occasions, which seemed to be a little like a game-plan to me. Paul was very much embracing the nice comments and kind gestures that Frances was making and they agreed they liked working with each other – maybe just a bit too much?

When Dillon told Courtney and Grainne that they would be dressing up outside of the Aquarium to pull in more tickets, they didn’t look too excited to say the least. But in true spirit, they got on with it – definitely commendable. In doing so, they actually got a few more tickets sold and the guest number stacked up to 58 in total.

However, when the event had began, those 58 guests were still waiting outside to come into the venue – not a great start at all.

Catastrophe continued as tickets were not just oversold for the tour, but also tickets were over-refunded too. The mermaids were sightly odd at the event but in a weird way, they worked and overall guests seemed to be enjoying themselves.

However, at the Casino event, guests were watching a rather opposing negative form of entertainment – Paul and Jessica’s argument, which should have been done in a more private area and in doing so, would have also prevented the complaints about the scene too.

Overall, both events were not perfect in any way and I’m happy my invite clearly got lost in the post.

The many mistakes made in the task from both teams were discussed in the boardroom, but the ones that meant the most in terms of affecting the profit was for team Nebula. Team Titans reclaimed their winning spot as team Nebula sulked off to Bridge Cafe where Paul and Jessica’s bickering once again began to arise and he chose to bring Jessica and Frances along with him back to Lord Sugar.

As blame was pushed onto Jessica when returning to the boardroom, her emotion began to get the better of her and tears began to form, likewise with Frances. Paul remained content, however a couple of times seemed to even rub Lord Sugar up the wrong way, coming across with an aggressive tone – probably not the best way to be to the person who was to determine your future in the process.

Tensions built and more emotion was expressed but blame was on all three of the candidates’ shoulders, so who was Sugar going to fire?

At the start of the series, I predicted Paul to be the winner and at week eight, I have been proven wrong. Paul was fired and although, initially my favourite, his reappearing aggressive attitude was becoming clear to not be favourable in business.

Eight candidates remain – bring on week nine.