The Apprentice: Episode Five

This week was an Art Gallery task. The apprentices had to choose and artist and sell the most amount of art at a gallery. Rachel headed up Impact and Sebastian did First Forte. As a credit to both team leaders neither leader caused conflict amongst their team and had their support. To even up the team members First Forte were allowed to choose someone from Impact, and they chose James.

The teams saw several artists and both teams had the same favourite so were invited to pitch to the artists. Saira went for Impact but they preferred James's pitch, as they felt they had connected better with James and Miriam when they had been to visit them earlier in the day, rather than Saira and Raj who were a bit corporate (though they thought it was because they were not public school enough).

Both teams worked hard getting the gallery ready although Matthew got in a bit of an argument where he accused First Forte of stealing Impact's share of the leaflets. It took a while for both teams to get a sale in the gallery but in the end Impact sold approx £6,000 against First Forte's £19,000.

Rachel took Matthew (because of his attitude) and Paul (because he didn't make much effort) back into the boardroom with her. Whilst Rachel saw Raj and Saira back to the lift, Paul ranted to Matthew about what happens when you have women in charge. I had thought Paul to have a lot of potential in this contest, but he showed himself to be a bad loser as well as a petty misogynist. However, because of Matthew's lack of social skills he was fired, which he expected. Paul still appeared to be bitter about being selected and from an disagreement he had with Saira. He could prove to be a problem in later tasks if he carries on bearing a grudge.