Television: 'The Apprentice - You're Fired' Recording
By Avril keogh
During my many years as an amateur entertainment reporter I’ve been lucky enough to visit many TV stations and be on the set of many TV show recordings, so you can imagine my excitement when the good people at overacheevers.com asked me to write a piece on the audience experience of 'The Apprentice - You’re Fired'.
The programme is recorded on a Monday morning in the 'Wright Venue' in Swords. Armed with our passports(!), last Monday morning myself and my friend Brenda, headed out to North County Dublin to the very plush and very impressively interior decorated Wright Venue. I was stunned by the amount of people who made it to venue to be in the audience. I’d say there was probably about 100 people there and this was 10.30am on a Monday! Mind you I’d imagine many of them were friends and family of that week’s evictee and I'd say even more were media students out to see what happens behind the scenes at such a recording. (Before we go on, I should point out that the recording I was at is due for broadcast on 18th of October - this Monday night on TV3! - so therefore by a process of elimination I discovered the identity of all the firees up until the episode I saw, mmm...food for thought) Of course if you’re reading this expecting to be told who gets fired then don’t bother reading on. I had to sign my life away promising that I wouldn’t reveal anything !!
So anyway, after signing the contract we sat down to watch the Week 5 edition of The Apprentice. I’m also a big fan of the UK Apprentice, and it always amazes me from year to year that The Apprentice wannabes make the same fundamental mistakes as the previous years' contestants. Well in week 5's Irish episode, the groups make the same vital error that had occurred two WEEKS previously and Bill Cullen had grilled them for it then, so you can only imagine the mood he was in when the same mistake came back to haunt him a second time and so soon! (That's all I'm saying about the episode BTW!!) The firee was revealed. It was surprising actually. There was a huge reaction from the audience watching. But you don’t want to argue with Bill Cullen (although personally in this case I think he made a wrong decision). After the show we were given refreshments and then taken down to the main area where the show was going to be recorded. I was surprised. It always looked to me like the desk where the panel sit was on a level with the audience, but it isn’t, it’s on a stage. Brenda and I were very lucky and got seats in the front row, just to the left as you look at the stage This meant that we were out of camera shot. After the floor manager briefed us on what was going to happen we recorded some out of sequence clapping, clapping with smiles, clapping without smiles, no clapping, just listening, all of these to be edited into the show later. Then, presenter Anton Savage took to the stage and introduced the panel to us. After brief sound checks we were ready, to rock, roll and record.
Obviously there is little more that I can say about what happens next as it would reveal too much....but during one of the breaks the crew came out and gave the ‘You’re Fired’ and ‘You’re Hired’ cards out to the audience so we could take part in the voting element at the end of the show. Neither Brenda nor I got any cards though and when we saw one of the crew walking in our direction with some spare cards and asked her if we could have them, she answered, ‘no as you won’t be seen on camera anyway.’ Now I thought that was a bit of an unpleasant situation, whether we were going to be seen or not was irrelevant. We should have been included in the vote from the start anyway but even more specifically, because we had asked to take part - I mean people fought and died for my right to vote. I know it’s only The Apprentice, but still. Unfortunately, having requested a photo with Anton Savage via the production company, I was told that he was going straight into a production meeting, that he had gone to lunch and was recording something else. C’mon guys...at the very least, if you don’t want people getting their photo taken with Anton, then the least you can do is get your story straight as to why. Anton is a great addition to the show, and the show itself is brilliant. But really you’ll probably enjoy the experience more watching it with everybody else on a Monday evening as the live recording experience was a slight disappointment.