The Apprentice UK - Week 3 - Not so Sweet for Oliver

The Apprentice UK - Week 3 - Not so Sweet for Oliver The Apprentice UK Week 3 Not so Sweet for Oliver Image Source: BBCANOTHER week down, and another candidate bites the dust. The Apprentice UK Week 3 began in sweetness and light on the stage set of Charlie The Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where candidates were assigned a confectionery manufacture and selling task. But the project had a bitter after-taste for Oliver Nohl-Oser, who was fired for his “indecisive” management of the losing team. A somewhat hazardous excursion on a candy-vending bicycle may not have aided poor Oliver’s chances either.IMAGE SOURCE: BBC (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Task Corporate CandyTHE candidates were tasked with the design and manufacture of their own brand of sweets, before heading to Brighton to sell them, to the public on the street, and to selected corporate clients. For the first time in this series of The Apprentice UK, after realigning the previously previously gender-specific membership of the teams, Lord Sugar appointed Alana Spencer as h ead of Team Titans, and Oliver to manage Team Nebula.Image Source: BBCThere were a number of mishaps suffered by both sidesâ€"including manufacturing chaos that threatened to overwhelm both project managers. There was a deeply cringeworthy scene  in the boardroom of Brighton Hove Albion FC when Sofiane came on much too strong in his attempt to raise the club officials’ spending ceiling by £100.Video Source: BBC on YouTubeIn the end, after the usual dramas and occasional comedy of errorsâ€"including mishaps with pricing, Oliver almost crashing the candy-vending display bicycle in his attempts to “create a buzz” on the streets, and Paul Sullivan and Mukai Noiri engaging in fiery words due to the failure to sell any of their Team Nebula sub-group’s share of salt and vinegar fudgeâ€"Alana’s Team Titans triumphed, managing to offset their more expensive ingredients with a higher volume of sales to bring home a profit of £785.66 to Nebula’s £615.08.Characters to Watch (ad sbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Aleksandra KingIMAGE SOURCE: BBCAleksandra pitched herself originally as being like the “Tasmanian devil” who would “torpedo my way through to win”, but on the Week 3 task, she made a number of blundersâ€"forgetting prices and miscalculating ordersâ€"in the trade sales that dented her credibility. She is now on Lord Sugar’s radar and will need to up her game to recover.Mukai NoiriIMAGE SOURCE: BBCMUKAI found himself in the final three of the losing team for the second week in succession, but he managed to deflect any serious attention to his own shortcomings by talking up the failure of project leader Oliver on price strategy, and on a productâ€"salt and vinegar fudgeâ€"that he described as “unappealing”. However, Karren Brady has noticed his air of “superiority” that rubs the other candidates the wrong way, and Lord Sugar too was balancing Mukai’s performance against the claims on the 36-year-old’s CV. “I am th is close,” Lord Sugar warned him, before drawing back and allowing Mukai to return to the house and remain in the process. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Paul SullivanIMAGE SOURCE: bbcThe 38-year old CEO and head of marketing at DMA UK registered zero sales on the task, and Karren Brady raised question marks over his temperament, not factors likely to endear him to Lord Sugar in the future. On The Apprentice: Youre Fired, guest panelist Susan Calman said she thought that Paul was a “controlling” influence who was playing a tactical game, suggesting that Paul had cleverly manipulated Oliver and ultimately left the project manager in the firing line. Obviously, only Paul can answer these claims, but any further lapses in temperamentâ€"and repeated zero sales recordsâ€"are likely to put him squarely in Lord Sugar’s sights in future installments of this season of The Apprentice UK. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Wisdom of Lord SugarP erhaps because the performance of the teams was something of a recovery after the debacle of the denim promotional task in Week 2, Lord Sugar was not in quite the same combative mood as a week earlier. There were some classic burns dealt out in vintage style… but most of them were reserved for dispatched losing project manager Oliver.• “Sugar is bad for you, and this Sugar is gonna be very bad for one of you, I can tell you…” â€" a cheerful entrance to the boardroom• “Yeah…” â€" a dead-eyed response to Oliver’s attempts to talk up Team Titans’ choice of the brand name, ‘Suck It Sea’.• “Was you a Willy Wonka, then, or was you an Oompa-Loompah?” â€" inquiring of Oliver’s project management skills in the kitchen• “Your future is looking as bright as one of your pigs…” â€" summing up sausage manufacturer Oliver’s chances of surviving the boardroom• “Your best chance of two-hundred-and-fifty grand is to buy a scratch cardâ€"you’re fired. ” â€" dispatching Oliver from the boardroom.Firing Oliver… the Right Call?Image Source: BBCThere’s a mixture of views on this one. The panel on weekly aftershow The Apprentice: You’re Fired thought there were other candidates who were more deserving of Lord Sugar’s damning verdict. The audience on the other hand were more decisive with a show of red “Fired” cards. “I imagine you’re seeing green, but no, that’s red!” host Rhod Gilbert told Oliver.Interestingly, Oliver had another view. He thought that all the final threeâ€"himself, Mukai and Paulâ€"should have been red-carded. “If I was Lord Sugar, I would have fired all three of us. We all had a part to play in it,” he said. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Looking Ahead to  Week 4After a relatively quiet Week 3, it looks as if Karthik is set to return to centre-stage in the next task for the candidates in The Apprentice UK. The teams are assigned to take over part of the world-famous dep artment store Liberty of London, where they will promote and sell a new product line, and run a personal shopping service for the ultra discerning clientele of the establishment.VIDEO SOURCE: BBC ON YOUTUBEHowever, Claude Littner’s good humour in this clip should not be taken as an indication that all will go well. “I just don’t get it!” Lord Sugar’s associate exclaims to camera at one point.All will be revealed on The Apprentice UK next week, and as ever, AGENT can hardly wait.The Apprentice UK is broadcast Thursdays 9-10pm on BBC One, followed by The Apprentice: You’re Fired, hosted by Rhod Gilbert, on BBC Two, 10-10.30pm.