Irish contestants survive opening episode of The Apprentice

January 31, 2025
Irish contestants survive opening episode of The Apprentice

Emma Rothwell has become the first contestant to be fired from The Apprentice as series 19 of the BBC business show began in the Austrian Alps with Irish contestants Aoibheann Walsh from Co Donegal and Jordan Dargan from Dublin among the hopefuls.

Thursday's launch show saw host Alan Sugar tell the 18 budding entrepreneurs he was "looking for a Bezos, rather than a bozo" as he sent the contestants to Innsbruck, Austria.

He tasked them with setting up and running a package tour, and they also had to sell the tickets.

Emma Rothwell was the first to go

Sugar then split the group into two teams, with one running a tour at the glacier, followed by observer Karren Brady, and the other running a tour in the forest, followed by former The Apprentice winner Tim Campbell.

Before sending the teams out, the 77-year-old told them some of their CVs contained "more crap than the River Thames".

Despite competing with Nadia Suliaman for the role, contestant Emma Street was nominated as project manager for Team Glacier while Anisa Khan was nominated as project manager for Team Forest.

The Forest team decided to offer an e-bike tour, along with honey and bread-making, saying they would start their price at €200 and go down to €100 at the lowest.

The Glacier team offered a sled ride to the bottom of a mountain, where they would greet their guests with Austria's national drink, Schnapps. They wanted to start at €175 and hold out for it as long as possible.

Team Glacier

The teams then set off to negotiate prices for tickets to attractions that would form part of their tour.

Both selling teams initially found it hard to sell tour tickets, with the teams being told they were "too expensive".

The teams eventually began to drop their prices, and air conditioning company owner Dean Franklin told his Forest team to target people who were physically fit enough to ride the e-bikes.

But his plan fell apart just moments later when Carlo Brancati attempted to sell a tour to a 97-year-old man from Denmark and his son.

As prices began to tumble below cost, both teams began to sell - with telemarketing company owner Keir Shave on the Forest team doing rock, paper, scissors with customers to decide the price they received.

The teams then successfully carried out their tours, and no customers asked for a refund.

Team Forest

The Glacier team ended up with a profit of €230.60, winning the challenge, while the Forest team suffered a loss of €166.

Sugar sent the winning team away to a "great house" with welcome drinks - before turning his attention to the losers.

The former Tottenham Hotspur owner was not impressed by Shave's rock, paper, scissors selling method, telling him: "This is not what you apply in business."

He added that Shave was "gambling with the company's money".

Sugar said he felt the blame was with the sales team and allowed the rest of the members to return to the house.

He went on to tell Brancati that "it seems to me that you've got no colleagues here who've got a good word to say about you", which, he said, "sends a warning to me".

But Sugar eventually told Rothwell "you're fired" after she sold no tickets.

Sugar said she had not "explained to me what you did do".

Alan Sugar - "It's a shambles, a bloody shambles, go back to the house all of you"

The former Amstrad owner told the rest of the team: "It's a shambles, a bloody shambles, go back to the house all of you."

Essex-based Rothwell had hoped to use Sugar's £250,000 worth of investment to take her online gift store business "to the next level".

The Apprentice will return at 9pm next Thursday on BBC One when the contestants will visit the ABBA Voyage show in London and be tasked with creating a virtual pop star.

Source: Press Association

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