The Apprentice The Best of Series 1-4   Starring: Sir Alan Sugar, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford Fremantle Home Entertainment RRP: £19.99 FHED2224 Certificate: 15 Available 20 April 2009

The Apprentice is back on our screens with series five currently running. The previous series four regularly drew in over eight million viewers for BBC One and a record ten million tuned in to see Lee McQueen become Sir Alan Sugar’s next apprentice. Fremantle Home Entertainment is giving fans of the series the chance to revisit highlights from series one to four...

The Apprentice has received critical acclaim and won numerous awards so it’s not surprising that a DVD has been released, showing highlights from series 1-4.

On this DVD we are able to see the ‘Motor Mouths’ and ‘Worst Decisions Ever’ from series 1-3. Highlights include Katie Hopkins’s dramatic boardroom exit, Paul Callaghan’s cheese dilemma, Syed Ahmed’s purchase of 100 chickens and Simon Ambrose’s attempt at selling a home trampoline live on TV.

These two BBC shows let you relive all of the cringe worthy things that the apprentices have done. Even though, being a fan, I have seen these when being aired; some of the mistakes that have been made in the past have been priceless. My favourite has to be the ordering of 100 whole chickens for 100 chicken pizzas! I mean come on, if this is an apprentice at work, surely there is hope for us all.

The extra features on the disc include Nick and Margaret’s Most Memorable Moments, An Interview with Nick and Margaret and The Auditions.

Whilst it is good to see Nick and Margaret together, in their ‘Most Memorable Moments’ feature, sharing good humour and banter it is a shame that in the interview they have been shot separately.

Unfortunately, a lot of the clips that Nick and Margaret talk about have already been shown in the two aforementioned programmes on the disc which led to boredom setting in and feeling restless.

The Auditions extra is for the current series 5. It was okay to see the candidates before they had been chosen for the programme but I felt that there was too much arrogance and it left me feeling drained. If I had heard the words... "I’m the next apprentice because..." one more time I think I would have thrown the TV out of the window.

All in all, this DVD is entertaining in small snippets but not something I would watch again and again. Once viewed, the only place for this is at the back of your DVD collection where it can gather dust. There are too many repeated clips and I felt I had watched it 100 times already, it was a little bit like Groundhog Day.

This is certainly a one trick pony that I would stay clear of. Only hardcore fans of the show will find this worth picking up.

3

Helena Rea