The Apprentice, Wednesday 9pm, BBC1

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:
Oh hello you. Yes, The Apprentice is back, bringing with it all the reality goodness we’ve come to expect: Sir Alan’s crunching non-sequiturs (“Mary Poppins I am not”), those well-practised contestant soundbites (“Words are my tool”), tie knots as big as apples and enough aerial shots of the Gherkin to give building fetishists everywhere coronaries.

Last night’s episode wasn’t the best we’ve seen, but chaos and excitement carried it through. The most notable character, of course, was the wonderful Raef Bjayou, who almost immediately emerged as this year’s Tre Azam – the previous series’ delusional clown.

Our new hero’s Adonis-like looks and stature are constantly being undermined by several factors, not least his splat of incongruous hair and conspicuous lack of blinking. Straight-spined, Raef, you see, has made a pact with himself never to turn just his head to face whoever’s speaking - it's the whole body or nothing. The effect is less badly oiled robot, more classical Greek sculpture – one that gets rotated by an invisible army of miniature helpers. Even better, he’s a class-A toff whose bizarre epithets only add to the silliness, “I get on with prince or pauper” being just one of a number of gems.

Anyway, after the fish-selling challenge Raef managed to escape the boot, but it was a shame Nicholas de Lacy-Brown had to go. His irksome image – David Mitchell meets Richard E Grant meets the most annoying man on earth – was all the more reason to keep him in, frankly. His only failure in life so far was getting a B in one of his GCSEs. Now he can add “first out on The Apprentice” to the list.

Meet the contestants >>
Sir Alan tired of catchphrase >>
Sir Alan softens up (a bit) >>

Comments

[harry r]

Raef is the only guy worthy of being on The Apprentice. All other candidates this year are a complete load of sh1t!!Raef has already got his own business and, unfortunately, that will go against him in the final stages.

It's the first time I have ever felt like missing an episode. The standard this year has dropped to an all time low

[Jade]

yes i noticed the matt lucas alike on the first episode!
im sorry but raef is a total ledge, anyone els agree??

[Will]

Yeah - Matt Lucas crossed with Boris Johnson! Hilarious!

[jo]

did anybody else notice the Matt Lucas lookalike !!

[s]

Is Raef acting to make good TV? That surely can't be what he's really like? The hair is horrendi!