Comic Relief Does The Apprentice
Encyclopedia
Comic Relief Does The Apprentice is a special celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 version of British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 reality television series The Apprentice
The Apprentice (UK)
The Apprentice is a British reality television series in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women compete for the chance to win a £100,000-a-year job as an apprentice to the British business magnate Lord Sugar in series one to six...

, produced to raise money for Comic Relief. The first edition aired in March 2007, and the second in March 2009. Five male celebrities and five female celebrities took part in the show to complete a designated task. The task in the 2007 edition was to run a fun fair. The show first aired on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 at 2100 GMT
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...

 on 15 March 2007 and concluded on 16 March 2007 during the main Comic Relief programme. The first episode of the show received strong viewing figures of 6.72 million. It became the fifth most watched programme on BBC One that week. The show returned on 12 March 2009 for the Comic Relief 2009 event, where the woman's team triumphed.

Just weeks before the show aired in early 2007, it was spoofed in the television programme Kombat Opera Presents The Applicants.

2007

The celebrities who were contestants on the programme are listed below.

Men's Team

Candidate Claim to fame
Danny Baker
Danny Baker
Danny Baker is an English comedy writer, journalist, radio DJ and screenwriter. Since the late 1970s, he has worked for a wide range of publications and broadcasters including NME, LWT, the BBC, and Talk Radio....

Broadcaster
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003, having first started working for Blair in 1994...

 - Project Manager
Journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, former government press officer
Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...



(Resigned after one day - replaced by first Apprentice winner Tim Campbell)
Actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

Ross Kemp
Ross Kemp
Ross James Kemp is a BAFTA award-winning British actor, author and journalist, who rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders...

Actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

Piers Morgan
Piers Morgan
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan , known professionally as Piers Morgan, is a British journalist and television presenter. He is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children....

 - Fired
Former newspaper editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 turned broadcaster
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...


Women's Team - Winners

Candidate Claim to fame
Karren Brady
Karren Brady
Karren Brady is an English sporting executive, television broadcaster, newspaper columnist, author and novelist. She is the former managing director of Birmingham City Football Club and current vice-chairman of West Ham United...

 - Project Manager
Businesswoman
Jo Brand
Jo Brand
Josephine Grace "Jo" Brand is a BAFTA winning British comedian, writer, and actor.- Early life :Jo Brand was born 23 July 1957 in Wandsworth, London. Her mother was a social worker. Brand is the middle of three children, with two brothers...

Comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Ann Cole is an English pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter, dancer, actress and model. She rose to fame in late 2002 when she auditioned for the reality television show Popstars: The Rivals on ITV. The programme announced that Cole had won a place as a member of the girl group, Girls...

Singer
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...

Actress, comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

 and columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....

Trinny Woodall
Trinny Woodall
Trinny Woodall is an English fashion advisor and designer, television presenter and author. She was raised in a wealthy family and was privately educated...

Fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

 guru and television presenter

Results

The women won in the categories "ticket sales" and "food and drinks", as well as claiming the overall win in terms of total money raised, while the men managed to pull off a victory in the "rides" category. Together, the teams raised over a million pounds for charity.
Men's Team Women's Team Both teams
Ticket sales £180,830 £662,325 £843,155
Rides £96,876 £71,347 £168,223
Food and drinks £8,550 £41,327.50 £49,788.50
Total £286,256 £774,998.50 £1,061,254.50


Everett walked off the show during filming on the first day, as he was uncomfortable with the Big Brother
Big Brother (UK)
Big Brother UK is the British version of the Dutch Big Brother television format, which takes its name from the character in George Orwell's 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four...

 style experience. He was replaced by the first UK Apprentice Tim Campbell
Timothy Campbell
Timothy "Tim" Campbell is an English businessman best known as the winner of the first series of the British version of The Apprentice, a BBC TV reality show in which contestants battle to win a £100,000-a-year job working for businessman Alan Sugar...

. Radio host Chris Moyles
Chris Moyles
Christopher David Moyles is an English radio and television presenter and author, who currently presents The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1 and Chris Moyles' Quiz Night on Channel 4....

 was asked to appear as a contestant, but declined the offer.

Overview

The task allocated during the show was to run a funfair
Funfair
A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...

. The team which produced the most money for Comic Relief via ticket, food, and ride sales would win. The teams were then gathered at Alan Sugar's office and briefed on the task ahead. The girls chose Karren Brady as their team leader, and the boys chose Alastair Campbell.

The celebrities were then given a list of all rides and attractions that would be offered at the funfair, leaving the teams to bargain over who would get which rides. The teams then called and visited celebrities to sell tickets and gain donations. The largest donation for a ticket was £150,000 from a friend of Trinny Woodall. During filming, Woodall was involved in a brawl with fellow contestant Piers Morgan. The scuffle occurred when Morgan led a chef, that Woodall had arranged, to believe that he had been arranged to cook for the boy's team at the funfair. On trying to retrieve her chef, Woodall was shoved by Morgan and Alastair Campbell, which reduced her to tears.

Celebrities who attended the funfair and donated money included Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell
Simon Phillip Cowell is an English A&R executive, television producer, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is known in the United Kingdom and United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and American Idol...

, McFly, Ashley Cole
Ashley Cole
Ashley Cole is an Barbadian-English professional footballer who plays for Chelsea and the England national team. He plays as a left-back and has been named one of the best in the world....

, Anne Robinson
Anne Robinson
Anne Josephine Robinson is an English journalist and television presenter, known for her assertive views and acerbic style of presenting. She was one of the presenters on the long-running British consumer affairs series, Watchdog, from 1993 to 2001 before returning in 2009...

, Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

, Chris Evans, David Furnish
David Furnish
David James Furnish is a Canadian/British filmmaker, former advertising executive, and now a film director and producer most known for his documentary Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras...

, Peter Stringfellow
Peter Stringfellow
Peter James Stringfellow is an English nightclub owner.-Early life:Stringfellow was born on 17 October 1940 to Elsie and James William Stringfellow , a steelworker...

, Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud are a British and Irish pop girl group based in London. They were created through the ITV1 talent show Popstars The Rivals in 2002. The group consists of Cheryl Cole , Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. They are signed to Fascination Records, a Polydor...

, Geri Halliwell
Geri Halliwell
Geraldine Estelle "Geri" Halliwell is an English pop singer-songwriter, author and actress. After coming to international prominence in the late 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member of the girl group the Spice Girls, Halliwell launched her solo career in 1998 and released her album Schizophonic...

, Take That
Take That
Take That are a British five-piece vocal pop group comprising Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Robbie Williams. Barlow acts as the lead singer and primary songwriter...

, Jesse Metcalfe
Jesse Metcalfe
Jesse Eden Metcalfe is an American actor, best known for his role on Desperate Housewives as John Rowland. He is also notable for his portrayal of Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald on the soap opera Passions and his starring role as the title character in the movie John Tucker Must Die.-Early life:Metcalfe...

 and John Terry
John Terry
John George Terry is an English professional footballer. Terry plays in a centre back position and is the captain of Chelsea in the Premier League...

.

In the end, both teams raised a total of over £1 million for Comic Relief. The girls' team won the competition by raising £774,000 compared to the boys' £286,000. As a result of the girls' team winning, Danny Baker, Piers Morgan, and the boys' team leader Alastair Campbell were put forward to potentially be fired by Sir Alan Sugar. In a heated exchange, Alastair Campbell and Piers Morgan blamed each other for their failure at the task. Sir Alan Sugar decided that Piers Morgan was more at fault due to his "winding people up" with his "demeanor" and consequently 'fired' him.

Jo Brand commented on The Graham Norton Show
The Graham Norton Show
The Graham Norton Show is a British comedy chat show that is broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom. It was originally shown on BBC Two from February 2007 to May 2009 until it moved to BBC One from October 2009...

 after the airing of the programme that "Trinny Woodall knows everyone in Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...

 who earns more than £10 million a year so she got on the phone and the rest of us just went to the pub, it was great!"

2009

Another series of Comic Relief Does The Apprentice was aired on 12 and 13 March 2009.

Men's Team

Candidate Claim to fame
Alan Carr
Alan Carr
Alan Carr is an English comedian and television personality. Born in Weymouth, he was raised in Northampton before moving to Manchester during his early 20's....

  - fired
Comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

Jack Dee
Jack Dee
James Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sardonic, curmudgeonly, and deadpan style.-Early life:...

Comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

Gerald Ratner
Gerald Ratner
Gerald Irving Ratner , is a British businessman. He was formerly chief executive of the major British jewellery company Ratners Group...

 - Project Manager
Businessman
Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross may refer to:* Jonathan Ross , English television and radio personality* Jonathan Ross , United States Senator, Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court* Jonathon Ross , former Australian rules footballer...

TV and radio presenter
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

Gok Wan
Gok Wan
Gok Wan is a British fashion consultant, author and television presenter of British Chinese heritage. He is known for his appearances on many television programmes , for providing fashion advice to celebrities and for contributing his views to fashion magazines published internationally.-Early...

Style
Human physical appearance
Human physical appearance refers to the outward phenotype or look of human beings. There are infinite variations in human phenotypes, though society reduces the variability to distinct categories...

 guru

Women's Team - Winners

Candidate Claim to fame
Michelle Mone
Michelle Mone
Michelle Mone OBE is a Scottish entrepreneur and model, who is best known as being the CEO of Ultimo.-Success with Ultimo:...

 - Project Manager
Businesswoman
Patsy Palmer
Patsy Palmer
Patsy Palmer is an English actress. Palmer made an early television appearance on the children's drama show Grange Hill, but is best known for playing Bianca Jackson in the popular British television soap opera EastEnders. Originally in the cast from 1993–1999, Palmer returned to EastEnders in...

Actress
Fiona Phillips
Fiona Phillips
Fiona Phillips is an English journalist, broadcaster and television presenter.-Early life:Phillips was born in Kent and Canterbury Hospital in 1961. Her grandparents ran the Duke's Head pub in Church Street St. Paul's. Phillips attended Kingsmead Primary School...

TV presenter
Carol Vorderman
Carol Vorderman
Carol Jean Vorderman MBE is a British media personality, best known for co-hosting the popular game show Countdown for 26 years from 1982 to 2008. In September 2011 she became a co-anchor of the ITV1 panel show Loose Women....

TV presenter
Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax is a BAFTA nominated American comedian who made a career in the United Kingdom as part of the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s.-Early life:...

Comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...



The show was filmed in late 2008. Jonathan Ross had been suspended by the BBC for three months for his part in the telephone pranks on Andrew Sachs
Andrew Sachs
Andrew Sachs is a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and is best known for his portrayals of Manuel in Fawlty Towers, a role for which he was BAFTA-nominated, and Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.-Early life:Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina , a...

' regarding Sachs' granddaughter in October and had been forbidden to film anything during that time, however since he had previously agreed and since it was for charity, the BBC allowed him to participate.

Patsy Palmer almost quit the show after a row with fellow contestant Michelle Mone. Sugar expressed disappointment about his portrayal in the BBC trailer for the programme, telling the Daily Mirror, "The idiot that edited it [...] went through the past five years of archive to find snapshots of me roaring like a deranged lunatic and just stuck them all together." He threatened to quit the series if it happened again.

Overview

The task was to create a toy and market it at a show attended by Sir Alan and toy industry representatives, with the potential for it to be mass-produced and sold to raise money for Comic Relief. The men's team, led by Gerald Ratner, created a belt with clip-on slots to hold collectible figurines, that was suggested by Jonathan Ross. The women's team created a velcro suit that was intended to come in pairs and played somewhat like Twister
Twister (game)
Twister is a game of physical skill produced by Hasbro Games. It is played on a large plastic mat that is spread on the floor or ground. The mat has four rows of large colored circles on it with a different color in each row: red, yellow, blue, and green. A spinner is attached to a square board...

, including a giant novelty dice that when rolled, instructed players to stick one part of their body to the other player's, with the loser being whoever fell to the floor first. Both teams suffered internal conflicts, with Jonathan Ross forcing many of his ideas through and then not contributing to the speech that he was supposed to be writing with Jack Dee, while Patsy Palmer became frustrated with Michelle Mone's leadership of their team and very nearly quit. Conflict between Dee and Ross was presented by the BBC in a humorous fashion, and it is likely that both Dee and Ross 'played up' their conflict to entertain the viewer.

The men's presentation was felt to be better, and Sir Alan told the girls that their product suffered from a myriad of small flaws such as the dice being largely needless, and the suits being in blue and pink when children often prefer to play among their own gender (although the girls pointed out that the prototyping company had made that decision without consulting their team). However, it was pointed out that the collectables for the men's belt would have such high initial production costs that it would take a long time for the product to generate any profits (and thereby money for Comic Relief), meaning that while the men's execution of their task may have been better than the women's, their product was completely worthless for Comic Relief's purposes, meaning that they lost the task. The women's team were "rewarded" by not having to work for Sir Alan any more.

As the men's team lost the contest, one of them was going to be fired by Sir Alan. As project manager, Ratner had to choose 2 of his team to join him in the boardroom to face the board. Ratner decided that Wan and Ross had made the greatest contribution to the team and so should not face the sack. During the deliberations in the board room, Jack Dee attempted to convince Sir Alan to fire his advisor Nick Hewer
Nick Hewer
Nicholas Radbourn "Nick" Hewer is a British former public relations consultant turned television personality, who lives in Northamptonshire, England. He is probably best known for his role as Alan Sugar's advisor on the UK version of the popular BBC television show The Apprentice...

 on the comical grounds that Nick had contributed nothing, and had taken money from Dee and bribed him. Alan Carr was eventually fired by Sir Alan, who felt that Carr had been the least effective contributor to the task and said he was doing Alan a favour by saving him from the miserable atmosphere of the boardroom.

Comic Relief are currently looking into producing the StickStuck product.

Ratings

The first episode of Comic Relief Does The Apprentice 2007 had viewing figures of 6.72 million.

The first episode of Comic Relief Does The Apprentice 2009 had 7.94m (33% share)

See also

  • The Apprentice
    The Apprentice (UK)
    The Apprentice is a British reality television series in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women compete for the chance to win a £100,000-a-year job as an apprentice to the British business magnate Lord Sugar in series one to six...

  • Comic Relief
  • Comic Relief Does Fame Academy
    Comic Relief Does Fame Academy
    Comic Relief Does Fame Academy is a spin-off of the original Fame Academy show where celebrities sing as students of the Academy. The programme was launched in 2003 to help raise money for the charities supported by Comic Relief, with the final of the show occurring on Red Nose Day...

  • Sport Relief Does The Apprentice
    Sport Relief Does The Apprentice
    Sport Relief Does The Apprentice was a celebrity version of the British reality television series The Apprentice, produced in 2008 to raise money for Sport Relief. Five male celebrities and five female celebrities took part in the show to complete a business-themed task...


External links

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