Best TV programme so far in 2007. Wonderful comedy
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<span class="type">event</span> '<span class="item"></span><span class="fn">[Comic Relief does The Apprentice](http://www.bbc.co.uk/scoopcps/comicrel/news/2007/03/07/41423.shtml)</span>'
<span class="dtreviewed">00:23 on Mar 16 2007</span> by <span class="reviewer vcard"></span><span class="fn">Conor O'Neill</span>
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Rating: <span class="rating">5</span> stars out of 5 <span class="stars" title="5"></span>
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Whoever is running Comic Relief this year is doing a wonderful job with all the pre-programmes. Despite myself I’m enjoying Fame Academy but it pales in comparison to the TV gold that was The Apprentice tonight.
They gathered together a bunch of celebrities to raise funds for Comic Relief via a fun-fair in London.
On the bloke’s side we had Alastair Campbell, Piers Morgan, Danny Baker, Grant from Eastenders and Rupert Evert. The vicious banter started immediately with Sir Alan. Jibes about selling peerages on street corners were particularly good.
On the birds side we had Cheryl Tweedy-Cole, Maureen Lipman, Trinny, Karen Brady and Jo Brand. Sir Alan had a few digs at Karen who is MD of Birmingham City FC.
I guessed the two strong characters for the men would be Campbell and Morgan and that turned out to be true. Poor Grant was invisible for most of the show and Danny got a few looks in. The pathetic Rupert got all precious on everyone and the poor lamb decided he couldn’t handle the camera on him the whole time. This is after the guys came up with the awesome idea of him auctioning phone calls to his Hollywood buddies for charity. Or as Piers put it “ask Madonna to stop buying babies for a minute and chip in”. So the big girls blouse exited to be replaced by Tim from Apprentice 1.
On the womens side, I was surprised to see both Jo and Maureen disappear into the woodwork. Karen ran the show but Trinny and Cheryl were the front-women. Some of their fund-raising was phenomenal - who was the plastic-surgery-distorted woman who gave them 150k?
Most of the men’s “big ideas” fell flat but I loved the fact that Alastair and Piers admitted that they were big-picture guys and usually had a swarm of PAs to take care of the implementation. I was impressed with Piers' failed idea of getting the 20 twenty bonus-earners in an investment bank to give 50k each and all arrive on a bus.
TV highlight of 2007 occurred after Trinny did a mini-workout with Cheryl to re-energise her. (On a slight side-note, am I the only bloke out there who thinks that Cheryl is a fabulous looking woman despite the shockin accent?) Anyway, they sit back down and have their heads down doing the numbers. Cheryl asks “where did you learn to do that?”. Trinny replies “I learned it from a Russian doctor I stay with in Austria who de-toxes me”….Pause….Cheryl raises her head and looks at the camera. Then lowers it a second later. I collapsed in laughter.
Later she asks Trinny if she suffers from “that OCD”. I think I love this woman.
The fun-fair seemed to go well. I particularly liked Tracy Emin’s coconuts for the coconut-shy painted as breasts.
Overall it looked like the men had out-executed on the day but then the numbers were totted at the end. The guys made over 200k, the women made over 600k! Wow.
More tomorrow night during Comic Relief. I’ll be glued.
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