Comic Relief Does The Apprentice (BBC One)

Ten Celebrities Design Toys to Raise Money for Charity

Mar 13, 2009

This year's celebrity outing of TV's top business-based reality competition was the best yet, mainly due to the hilarious contributions from Jonathan Ross and Jack Dee.

Since it first aired five years ago, the UK version of The Apprentice has always been a bit of an anomaly as a reality style TV programme that is actually worth watching. As with anything that transcends the lower ranks of popularity, the show churns out the odd celebrity special - usually full of complete no marks - in order to raise money for the BBC’s Comic Relief charity.

Jonathan Ross and Jack Dee vs Ruby Wax and Carol Vorderman

This year had an obvious improvement on previous outings as it featured celebs that are genuinely famous and game for a laugh. Each team was given its own business expert, probably so they don’t make a pig’s ear of it and the whole thing doesn’t become a massive embarrassment.

The men’s group was made up of Alan Carr, Jack Dee, Jonathan Ross, Gok Wan and internet businessman Gerald Ratner. The team immediately got down to some “serious” playing about with toys before any brainstorming took place.

The women’s team was comprised of Ruby “someone please shut her up” Wax, Patsy Palmer, Carol Vorderman, Fiona Phillips and businesswoman Michelle Mone (who showed her feisty side when she went up against the nasty Katie Hopkins on You’re Fired!,) Things started off well for the women, but owing to some personality clashes, it was evident the centre wouldn't hold.

The teams were given the task of designing a toy, making it, coming up packaging and launching an advertisement campaign to be presented to experts and Sir Alan Sugar at the climax. After a focus group session with young children, the girls came up with a Velcro suit while the boys decided on a belt for collectible figures that could be swapped.

As ever with The Apprentice, the editing suggests that it’s not so much a representation of what happened, more so a best of clip collection. But anyone watching a Comic Relief shouldn’t be too interested in an accurate version of events or who wins - better to enjoy the random funny moments. These included Alan’s freestyle shouting for the TV spot, Jack criticising Jonathan’s lacklustre attempt at being a director, Michelle creasing up as the girls tried to sing their jingle, Gok feeling the pressure when he has to put his designing hat on - and Carol’s intentionally bad monosyllabic reading during the presentation.

Egos were also set to full; Gok and Alan were trying to out-camp each other, Pasty and Michelle argued over petty matters and Jack and Jonathan appeared to be competing for the title of funniest contestant with their rather convincing double act. The only real problem was that the “grr, I don’t care who I step over!” clips from some of the celebs in the opening which were so over-the-top and out of place that they were possibly created for comic effect.

Sir Alan “fires” Alan Carr

The boys lost this one - for the third year in a row - due to developing a product that was not commercially viable, meaning they had to face angry beard monster Siralan in the boardroom episode shown during Comic Relief Night. Again Sir Alan proves that he’s not afraid to call a spade a f**king digging thing by dishing out blunt observations with relative ease.

In the dreaded boardroom Jonathan and Gerald refused to be proven wrong about the potential of the product - but it was Jack and Alan who were dragged back into the firing line. While trying to defend himself, Jack jokingly proposed that assistant Nick Hewer be sacked for not contributing anything - but Alan Carr ended up on the wrong side of the firing finger “for his own good”.

Great Comedians and no Piers Morgan

Although weaker than the regular version, it was a funny hour and half of television that entertained for a good cause – everything you would want from a Comic Relief show. This was easily the best group of celebrities assembled for one of these specials; great comedians, a few bitchy women and no Piers Morgan in sight. More of the same next year please.

A repeat of the 2009 Comic Relief Does The Apprentice can be seen on BBC iPlayer and for donations to the charity go to the Comic Relief website.

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